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RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY 

THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT 

OR 

MATERIAL LOGIC 



A SHORT TREATISE ON THE INITIAL PHILOSOPHY, 
THE GROUNDWORK NECESSARY FOR THE 
CONSISTENT PURSUIT OF 
KNOWLEDGE 

BY 

WILLIAM POLAND, S.J. 

PROFESSOR OF RATIONAL PHILOSOPHY IN 
ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY 



Loyola University Press 
chicago, ill. 

1916 



.T7 



Imprimi potest 

A. J. BURROWES, S. J. 

Praep. Prov. 



Nihil obstat 

John B. Furay, S. J. 

Censor Deputatits 



Imprimatur 

George W. Mundelein, D. D. 

Archiepiscopus Chicagiensis 



/ 



m -2 ISI7 

COPYRIGHT, 1916 

By Loyola University Pbess 

Chicago, 111. 

©CI,A453417 




PREFACE. 



This volume aims at presenting the testimony 
f nature and humanity on the reality and reli- 
ibility of knowledge. Philosophy is scientific 
icnowledge. It is the knowledge of things in their 
causes. It tries to answer the questions, what! 
whence? how! why! whither! Now, before apply- 
ing ourselves to the acquisition of philosophical 
knowledge, special or general, it is well for us to 
make some inquiry into the philosophy of knowl- 
edge itself. Whilst thus preluding our researches 
we shall be providing ourselves with a certain 
mental equipment which we shall find to be in- 
valuable in our future study. 

We require for our present purpose no other 
data than those universal convictions which have 
ever been found to be absolutely necessary for 
human existence both congregate and individual ; 
and which are as strong and as well grounded in 
the forest-dweller as in the academician. 

No labor has been spared to make the termi- 
nology here used what a philosophical termi- 
nology ought to be. Whilst it harmonizes with 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

the terminology that has been consecrated by 
twenty centuries of usage, from the days of Ar- 
istotle and Plato, and whilst representing the 
most approved terminology of the modern foreign 
languages ; it is, besides, in keeping with the best 
English terminology — the very earliest. The can- 
ons of language make it eminently unlawful that 
every one who chooses to write on philosophy 
should be privileged to change the terminology as 
he pleases. The bewildering vagueness of phil- 
osophic thought now so lamentably noticeable 
amongst us is due to the very great and unjusti- 
fiable liberty that has been taken with the mean- 
ings of Avords. Such liberty is not lawful in let- 
ters, in chemistry or in commerce. No more 
should it be countenanced in the highest spec- 
ulative studies, where ever;^i;hing depends upon 
the most scrupulous nicety and precision, and 
where the slightest shades of difference between 
what are called synonyms may not be overlooked. 
The absence of such close discrimination may be 
tolerated in fervid oratory and in the flight of 
poesy: but not in cold reason. Philosophy is as 
rigid as mathematics: its terminology should be 
as rigorously exact. 

It might perhaps be subject for remark that 
the author seldom mentions philosophical writers 
except when he finds occasion to disagree with 
them. This he would explain by stating once more 
that he is writing the philosophy that has been 
acted upon practically by all men from the begin- 



PREFACE. O 

]iing. To all, then, since their authority is en- 
grossed upon the open scroll of time, let general 
tribute here be rendered. Particular mention is 
reserved almost exclusively for certain leaders 
amongst those, who, whilst as careful as the rest 
of men to live according to their practical good 
judgment, have, nevertheless, raised the standard 
of speculative revolt against the common sense of 
humanity. 




CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Chapter I. The Name and General Scope of the Treatise. 

A Distinction — Name and Object of the Treatise — 
The Initial Philosophy — Spirit of the Inquiry 11 

Chapter II. The Question Again Stated. 

Subtle Questions — Two Manners of Reply — A Strange 
Fact — The Older Writers — A Sceptical Tendency — 
Sources of the Tendency — Matter of the Treatise 17 

Chapter III.— A Chapter of Discord. 

Bacon — Hobbes — Locke — Berkeley — Descartes — Kant 
— Fichte — Schelling — Hegel — A Summary — Comte 
and Positivism — What have we to Offer? — Course 
Outlined 25 

Chapter IV. Consciousness and Evidence. 

A Plea for Method — Is the Act of Consciousness 
Simultaneous with Thought? — Memory and Personal 
Identity — Object of Consciousness — Some Leading 
Facts — The Ground or Motive for the Declarations 
of Consciousness — Importance of Evidence ... 50 

Chapter V. The Affirmation of an Object That is Not Self. 

The Great Question — To be Conscious is to Know — 
Transit to Non-Self — Example — General Inference 60 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter VI. Scepticism. 

Dogmatic and Non-Dogmatic Scepticism — Partial 
Scepticism — Inconsistency — A Practical Considera- 
tion — An Advantage Gained — The Work Before Us •. 65 

Chapter VII. The Truth of Thought or Logical Truth. 

Truth: Ontological, Logical, Moral — Truth, a Cer- 
tain Correspondence or Conformity — Logical Truth 
— Logical Falsity — Logical Truth: in what Mental 
Act is it Found — The Radical Reason 74 

Chapter VIII. Certitude. 

Three States of Mind: Ignorance, Doubt, Certitude 
— Object of Certitude — Three Orders of Ontological 
Truth: Metaphysical, Physical, Moral — Metaphysical, 
Physical and Moral Certitude — Objective Certitude — 
Certitude: Immediate and Mediate; Direct and Re- 
flex; Philosophical — Probability . 84 

Chapter IX. Means we Possess for Acquiring Knowledge: 
Perceptive or Knowing Powers. The External Senses. 

A Difficulty — Unity of the Human Person — The 
Outer Senses — The Formal Objects of the Outer 
Senses — Taste — Smell — iHearing — Sight — Touch 97 

Chapter X. Imagination. 

Imagination — Imagination and Intellect — External 
Senses and Imagination — Error in the Judgment — 
The Normal State — Uses of the Imagination . . 116 

Chapter XI. Intellect and Thought 

The Intellectual Act— The Principle of Unity— Acts 
of Intellect or Mind — Mediate and Immediate Knowl- 
edge — The Idea as a Sign — The Universal Idea: 
Nominalism, Conceptualism, Realism — Thought . . 125 



CONTENTS. y 

PAGE 

Chapter XII. Error. 

Error — Error is not Physically Necessary — The 
Savage and the Sun — Error and the Will — Error and 
Opinion — Normal State — Objections Raised — An 
Idealist Difficulty 146 

Chapter XIII. Criterion and Evidence. 

The Word, Criterion — Some Answers — Evidence — 
Descartes and Reid — Objective Truth — The Word, 
Evidence — Evidence: Immediate and Mediate; In- 
trinsic and Extrinsic — The Beginnings of Knowledge 164 

Chapter XIV. Human Testimony and Belief. 

Some Terms: Witness, Testimony, Belief, Authority 
— Testimony: Divine and Human; Doctrinal and His- 
torical — Witness: Immediate and Mediate — Belief 
and Life — Dogmatic Testimony — Sensus Communis 
— Historical Testimony — Conditions Postulated — Ar- 
gument in Brief — Contemporary Events — Past Events 
— Oral Tradition — Writing — Monuments — Note . 184 

Chapter XV. Conclusion. 

Summary of Method — The two Extremes and the 
Middle — What is Evident — A Quiet Process — Sensus 
Communis 220 



THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT 



CHAPTER I. THE NAME AND SCOPE 
IN GENERAL. 



A Distinction — Name and Object of the Treatise — The 
Initial Philosophy — 8pirit of the Inquiry. 

1. A Distinction. In a preceding volume, The 
Laws of Thought, the writer judged it wise to 
state, by way of preface, that the book was not 
a psychology. The same remark may well be 
prefixed, with significance, to the present outline 
work. This book is not a psychology. Neither, 
again, is it, even in the most diluted form, a 
physiology. We cannot insist too strongly upon 
the determination and characterization of the sep- 
arate departments of rational philosophy as dis- 
tinguished from one another, and as divided in 
their scope from material or experimental sci- 
ences which may furnish them with data. 

Physiology, as referred to man, is a study of 
the human body. Its formal object is the fitness 

11 



12 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

of the various parts of the organism for the vital 
functions exercised in and through the body. 

Psychology studies the nature of the human 
soul, the invisible vital principle; and its varied 
vital activity, whether as exercised through the 
organs of the body or as free from direct co- 
operation of the material organism. 

The facts that we shall have to refer to, here 
and there, belong without doubt to the complete 
data upon which psychology and physiology are 
constructed. We need, however, for our pur- 
pose, only a few very elementary and patent ones 
which are the common knowledge-property of all 
minds. Hence we draw a marked line of dis- 
tinction all around our present treatise. 

Truly, all that the present treatise can legiti- 
mately contain within its rigid boundary must be 
known, at least implicity, before any other science 
can be seriously entered upon. Nay, its great, 
final conclusion we must have even now in our 
minds before we begin; otherwise it were folly 
for us to proceed. 

2. Name and Object. The subject we have in 
mind has been called by various names. It is 
not seldom called Applied Logic. With what jus- 
tice this name is given to it, it is not easy to see. 
For, outside of the Formal Logic, all rational 
philosophy is Applied Logic, namely, an applica- 
tion of correct methods of thought to special sub- 
jects. 



THE NAME AND SCOPE IN GENERAL. 13 

It is also called Material Logic. This name is 
strictly correct. As the Formal Logic was oc- 
cupied with the ^jcorm or structure of correct 
thought, so the Material Logic is occupied with 
the material that is found, so to say, in that form 
or structure, or mould. It does not discuss the 
intimate constituent nature of the act of thinking. 
This discussion belongs to psychology. But it 
considers the thought in reference to what is 
thought about. It asks, what may be the value of 
those ever changing thought-contents in the way 
of constituting knowledge. Formal Logic studies 
only the manner of progress of thought from 
judgment to judgment in the process of drawing 
conclusions. But this mere form of argument is 
of no avail to go forward in knowledge, unless 
we can accept the matter of the separate judg- 
ments as true. What is meant by the matter of 
these judgments being true, makes up the burden 
of this book. Material Logic, then, discusses the 
truth of thought. It is concerned with the gen- 
eral question of the "content of thought — ^any 
thought or train of thought, any idea, judgment, 
argument — as having a representative value. 

Sometimes the treatise is called Critical Logic, 
because it judges of (examines and passes sen- 
tence on) the representative value of thought in 
general; and because its purpose is to establish 
the Criterion, that is, the standard, the test, the 
last court of appeal in determining such value. 



14 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

3. The Initial Philosophy. A very expressive 
name for the treatise would be **The Initial Phi- 
losophy, ' ' because it deals with the rudiments, the 
very first beginnings of all philosophy, specula- 
tive and practical. It is, in sum, but a presenta- 
tion of the axioms of knowledge. Upon the com- 
pleteness and correctness of such presentation 
will depend the extent of the range that shall be 
conceded as belonging to thought; and the con- 
viction of the value of thought as knowledge. 

The value, therefore, of this initial philosophy 
can not be over estimated. Yet, in direct propor- 
tion to its value for human thought and life, is it 
all the more easy of acquirement. And naturally 
so. For, because of its very necessity, we are 
taught it, by nature, at the proper stages of child- 
hood and youth, even as we are taught to inflate 
the lungs, to seek for food, and to go to sleep. 

To the learner, we believe the name. Initial 
Philosoph}^, will carry a very definite meaning; 
and it may commend itself to adepts, as express- 
ing the search for the initmw, pMlosophandi, that 
is, the beginning, the first word, the start, the 
whence of philosophic thought. 

4. Spirit of the Inquiry. The whole story of 
this book might be briefly told by any one who 
could record what nature taught him, in her pri- 
mary lessons, about knowledge being knowledge. 

To some who have spent long years of toil over 
philosophical speculations, such a record might 



THE NAME AND SCOPE IN GENERAL. 15 

perhaps, prove beneficial. For, just as one may 
be brought, by habit, to grow into a bodily state 
which abhors the laws of hygiene, courts the 
poisoned atmosphere, craves for unwholesome 
food and defies the clamor of the brain for rest ; 
so, too, in matters philosophical one may, nnder 
the influence of surroundings and a mistaken view 
of personal capacity, become filled with a rash 
spirit of discovery and, spurning the tender guid- 
ance of nature as the child flings off the nurse, 
may set out, over-confident and half-taught, by 
paths which are not paths (since nature has not 
trod them), to grope, at length, in a maze from 
which there is no exit without the kind guide 
whose services have been rejected. 

Our work must be undertaken in a spirit of 
simplicity and sincerity. Unfounded prejudice 
and mental conceit can have no place in it. We 
are not in quest of '^views'' or ^ theories," but, 
now, in the fullness of reason, we ask to have 
shown to us some of those ways which, in blessed 
confidence, we traversed with nature as our guide. 
And, as philosophers already formed, nature's 
unconscious pupils, we turn, now, with minds 
stored and developed, and we dare to ask the 
question — is there a reason why we shall not look 
upon all this mental store as mythical? And the 
response which nature gives {i. e., which we our- 
selves give to ourselves inquiring) is, that were it 
mythical, nature must, long since, have pro- 
nounced it so; else Avere nature not herself, and 



16 



THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 



we, not ourselves, self thus being resolved into 
a pure contradiction, an absolute nothing, or into 
not so much of anything as to be capable of being 
deluded. 



CHAPTER II. THE QUESTION AGAIN 
STATED. 

Subtle Questions — Two Manners of Reply — A Strange 
Fact — The Older Writers — A Sceptical Tendency — 
Sources of the Tendency — Matter of the Treatise. 

5. Subtle Questions. It is due to out inquiry 
that we hide none of its difficulties. It is only by 
the repetition of those difficulties that we can 
keep our minds directed to the solution of our 
problem. We have, therefore, to ask ourselves, 
what do we mean by thought in the sense of its 
constituting knowledge f And is there, indeed, 
such a thing as knowledge? Can we, really, rely 
upon thought, as* being, at any time, knowledge, 
in the strict sense — that is, as having an objec- 
tive value, as being representative of something 
which is or was or may be, independently of the 
thought which we possess! Can we possess 
knowledge in such a way as to rest secure that 
the content of the thought has an object, a cor- 
responding something which is not the thought 
itself? In other words, can we have certitude? 
If so, w^hat is the basis of this certitude? What 
is the last reason we can give that the thought is, 
indeed, a knowledge-thought, that its content 
answers, as representative, in the way of thought, 

17 



18 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

to something which is not the thought! What, in 
other words, is the Criterion of knowledge, of 
logical truth? 

6. Two Manners of Reply. Thought would be 
uninviting, irksome — sometimes, perhaps, exas- 
perating- — were it never possible for us to confide 
in it as a truth-teller. Still, we have all made 
satisfactory, affirmative reply to the above ques- 
tions. They are all so very primary that every 
human mind settles them for itself very early in 
life, altogether unconsciously and with the in- 
stinct that impels to self-preservation. But, when 
we come to philosophize upon them, to argue, we 
find that they are, indeed, so very primary as to 
lead us back beyond the processes of deductive 
demonstration. And, if we are not quick in our 
analysis, keen-sighted to detect the limits of de- 
duction, open-minded to infer from the uniform 
conduct of mind the natural starting point of 
thought — we shall be ver^^ prone, with our philos- 
ophizing, to go round and round in a circle with- 
out ever coming to an end. For, when we have 
given ourselves a definite reason wh^^ we regard 
any individual thought as tenable, when we are 
secure that the .thought stands for and truly rep- 
resents something w^hich is not the thought itself, 
we have here a second thought about the first 
thought. Here, again the whole question is re- 
newed. This second thought, this second judg- 
ment, Avhich declares the first to be knowledge, to 



THE QUESTION AGAIN STATED. 19 

be true — is this second thought, this second judg- 
ment, true I Is it, verily, knowledge that the first 
is knowledge? How shall we answer! Must we 
say that by the very admission of knowledge we 
involve ourselves in an endless series of ques- 
tions, or commit ourselves to an indefinite repe- 
tition of the same question, "why may I say 
that I know?" and thus, as the question may go 
on forever, that w^e repudiate in the same breath 
what we have just admitted! No ; we do not thus 
reject the possibility of a reliable thought. On 
the contrary, we determine the ultimate, universal 
standard of the truth of thought, a standard 
which verifies itself and stops the question. 

7. A Strange Fact. It is, indeed, a strange fact 
that, at this stage of the world's history, w^hen 
we are in possession of the accumulated experi- 
ence of the ages, when libraries are teeming with 
the undoubted record of past ages, when men 
whom we recognize as intellectual leaders think 
their time well spent in deciphering relics of civ- 
ilizations which have left us no chronology, when 
the principles governing the movements of the 
forces in matter have been combined to produce 
the material civilization that is the characteristic 
mark of this our era, when the age makes so 
much of facts, calls for facts, facts, facts, and 
builds the wonderful pyramid of the natural sci- 
ences with visible, tangible facts — it is strange 
enough that, just now, rational philosophy should 



20 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

be called upon by the very philosophers of fact to 
add to philosophy a new treatise whose purpose 
would be to uphold that there is such a thing as 
a fact and that we can know it as a fact. 

8. The Older Writers. The Older Writers did 
not deem it necessary to put into rational philoso- 
phy a special treatise to expound the fact of 
loiowledge, the possibility^ and grounds of certi- 
tude, and the conscious possession of certified 
knowledge. Here and there they have touched 
on these questions and have, indeed, in this way, 
presented all the maxims of certitude as well as 
all the principles for the solution of difficulties. 
They did not think it any more necessary to write 
special treatises on the fact of knowledge and the 
reality of the object of thought than upon the fact 
of hunger appeased by a real object called food. 

9. A Sceptical Tendency. There were, in the 
schools of ancient Greece, sceptics, doubters, who 
professed to doubt about everything — ^even to 
doubt about their doubt. But, with the wane of 
those wonderful schools — the market place for 
every novelty and contradiction in thought which 
the mind of man could devise — the professional 
universal doubters disappeared. 

Within the last two centuries a doubting dispo- 
sition has been revived, not indeed under the title 
of scepticism— V for that is a name of reproach — 
but under various new names which, from dif- 



THE QUESTION AGAIN STATED. 21 



ferent standpoints, are thrown out as challenges 
to the certification of loiowledge. How this should 
take place in our day, when the intellect of the 
world is anything but practically sceptical of its 
own power and of the objective value of its 
knowledge, would seem to be, as we have said, a 
paradox beyond hope of resolution. 

10. Sources of the Tendency. Still, it is well 
for us to try to discover some of the circumstances 
which have tended, at least, to foster the estab- 
lishment of this incongruous intellectual position. 
We shall always deal best and most justly with 
mistakes when we try to acquaint ourselves with 
the state of affairs in which the mistakes have 
been made. One disposing circumstance towards 
the mental attitude we are speaking of has been, 
no doubt, a method of study that has been very 
widely pursued in matters philosophical. Phi- 
losophy has been very extensively treated during 
the past forty years as though it were history, a 
record of opinions. Often, the chief intellectual 
labor involved has been to determine the process, 
presuming that there was such process, by which 
one opinion developed into another. A much 
worried method of connecting — not always by 
substantial joints — the external events that make 
up the annals of the human race, of weaving them 
together with some supposed thread of hidden 
causes, thus adding to the interest of plot,- has 
received an unimpeachable name, the philosophy 



22 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

of history. But the same method has been ap- 
plied to the chronicle of the speculations of men^ 
Hidden relationships have been imagined to exist 
between the thoughts of writers who, very prob- 
ably, would have shuddered at the suspicion of 
such affinity, and these supposed relationships 
have been used as links to join together chapters 
on the history of philosophy. Now, seeing the very 
contradictory statements that have sometimes 
been made thus to develop one out of another, we 
can understand how the method, when pursued 
with more energy than prudence, may readily be 
accepted by young minds as a very urgent invita- 
tion to theoretical scepticism, as a plausible plea 
for the identification of contradictories, the re- 
jection of certitude. There hovers about the 
whole process the spirit that is most potent to 
captivate the attention of man, the story-spirit; 
and the philosophy is made to go ahead in the 
easy trot of that book which to-day carries nearly 
all the burden of communication between the 
minds of men — the novel. Like other things mun- 
dane, philosophy is made to respond to the watch- 
word. Evolution. And we must not forget that 
the sweeping march of physical science, right 
under our eyes, from the condition of a plaything 
to that of an indispensable instrument in art, 
agriculture, commerce, government, exerts over 
minds a strong predisposing influence to make 
them more ready to look with favor upon theo- 



THE QUESTION AGAIN STATED. Z6 

lies of evolution, in whatsoever connection pro- 
pounded. 

Another thing, too, we nmst make some ac- 
count of: it is, the very general habit of men 
to follow a leader. If we take this in connection 
with what has been said, w^e shall not wonder at 
seeing disciples gather around bold and brilliant 
men who launch new theories. And this, all the 
more especially, when these theories are in spec- 
ulative matters and when, though in direct op- 
position to the needs and deeds of daily life, they 
can be held with impunity in speech and writing. 

Finally, it may be observed, untenable theories 
gain a more concentrated attention by being 
couched in an obscure diction which is, of course, 
necessary to hide the weak points. Obscarity is 
a prime element of the mysterious. Mystery has 
its charm. Hence it is not to be wondered at that 
many should devote themselves to the luxury of 
a solution. 

11. Matter of the Treatise. Possibly, we may 
be well guided as to the amount of matter to be 
put into our treatise, if we view the difficulties 
that have been felt or created by certain writers, 
who are still given places of honor and who thus 
have a direct influence on philosophical thought. 
The manner of treatment, too, arising herefrom 
may be the better adapted to present needs in 
the subject under consideration. Not, indeed, 
that we propose to consume our time in tiresome 



24 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

refutations. But we can, in this way, so direct 
the affirmative treatment of the subject as to en- 
able the student, in after readings, to note the in- 
exactness or positive error of some views ad- 
vanced by writers who are even distinguished for 
their sagacity and are recognized to have been 
gifted with no ordinary degree of philosophical 



CHAPTER III. A CHAPTEE OF DISCORD. 

Bacon — Hohhes — Locke — Berkeley — Hume — Descartes 
— Kant — Fichte — Schelling — Hegel — Summary — 
Comte and Positivism — What have we to Offer — 
Course Outlined. 

12. Bacon. In the presentation we are about 
to make — one which has its inconveniences by 
reason of the brevit^^ we must consult and by 
reason of the need we have of bringing our char- 
acters into a common field of view — we may open 
with a noted scholar of the sixteenth century, 
Lord Bacon, of Verulam, who was born at Lon- 
don in the year 1561, and died at Highgate, Eng- 
land, in 1626. His chief writings, as bearing in 
a way upon our subject, are a treatise De Aug- 
mentis Scientiarum, on the advancement of learn- 
ing, and another entitled Novum Organum Scien- 
tiarum, a new method of science. These are 
practically Parts I and TI of a great work on 
Method in the Sciences. Bacon started with what 
we shall find to be a very true principle, that the 
data for intellectual action are furnished, pri- 
marily, til rough the senses. He rendered great 
ser\dce to natural science by the stress he laid 
upon sensible observation and experiment. But he 

25 



26 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

laid so niucli stress upon it, he pushed the experi- 
mental part of induction ('^Laws of Thought,'' 
No. 125) so far as to seem to drive out deduction 
from the methods of thought. He appeared to 
have no regard for analytical principles, without 
which, indeed, his own inductions would have no 
value in that very scientific method of which he 
assumed the championship. He is called the father 
of induction. Not that he discovered it ; for it is 
a natural process, known even to the child and 
pursued by every human mind. But he exag- 
gerated. He w^as wrapped up in his prospective 
vieAV of what might be accomplished — and, as we 
see to-day has been accomplished — through ob- 
servation of material phenomena by the outward 
senses ; and his enthusiasm has borne deleterious 
fruit in the field of philosophy side by side with 
the growth of sensible or material experiment 
which it stinmlated. The world has known few 
minds so versatile and ingenious as that of 
Francis Bacon. But those who followed him, ac- 
cepting with dangerous exclusiveness the method 
of which he was enamored, as sole and absolute 
in the acquisition of knowledge, ended by reject- 
ing the mental phenomena which are not per- 
ceptible by sense, as well as the immediate intu- 
ition of analytic or a priori principles which is 
performed without a series of experiments. 

13. Hobbes. The first example of what we 
have been saying is found in the writings of 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 27 

Thomas Hobbes, who was born in Malmesbnry, 
England, in 1588, and died in Derbyshire in 1679. 
Hobbes was the friend of Bacon, and, like Bacon, 
nsed the Latin, the universal scientific language 
of the day, to bring his writings before the schol- 
ars of his time. His chief works are, Elementa 
Philosophica de Give (The Philosophy of Citizen- 
ship), JJe Corpore Politico (On the Body Politic), 
a treatise on "Human Nature,'' and '^Leviathan, 
or the Matter, Form and Power of a Common- 
wealth." Bacon's advice, to observe the phe- 
nomena of the material world by means of the 
senses for the purpose of collecting data, Hobbes 
perverts into the principle that all perception is 
sense perception. But sense perceives only mat- 
ter. Plence, he concludes, we can affirm nothing 
but matter. He carries this into personal con- 
duct and politics, making good and evil merely the 
pleasure and pain of sense, and declaring govern- 
ment to be simply a despotism holding in check 
the purely sensual nature of man. We may ob- 
serve, in passing, that Hobbes spent twenty years 
in a controversy endeavoring to show that he 
had found the quadrature of the circle. 

14. Locke. John Locke was born at Wrington, 
England, in 1632, and died at Gates, in 1704. He 
was, by education, a physician; by profession, a 
gentleman. His w^ork, "Essay Concerning the 
Human Understanding," has been much read, by 
reason of its straight-forward, business-like ut- 



28 THE TRUTH . OF THOUGHT. 

terance, and by reason of the unhesitating manner 
in which it assumes to lay down a complete class- 
ification of our cognitions, and to determine their 
origin and connection. He is very affirmative; 
and this has contributed to his popularity. Still, 
as his philosophical studies were not wide, we 
must, withal, pronounce his isolated Essay as 
necessarily superficial. His classification- of 
ideas, or objects of ideas, is more strictly in the 
line of ontology than of a treatise on understand- 
ing. From our present standpoint, notwithstand- 
ing the apparent clearness of the ^* Essay," it is 
difficult to say what is really the mind of the 
author. For, he adopts a terminology which does 
not explain itself in the accepted meaning of 
terms, and he lands himself in a region which to 
the critic seems, at one time, to be the materialism 
of Hobbes, recognizing the knowledge of matter, 
only, and, at another, to favor idealism, admitting 
the certified knowledge of mind, only. His un- 
qualified use of the word idea (which strictly be- 
longs to intellect) when speaking of sense-per- 
ception, leaves the way wide open to the identifi- 
cation of sense-perception and intellectual percep- 
tion, with a resultant of sensualism or idealism 
according to the bias of the reader. All this is 
attested by the widely different paths pursued by 
those who have accepted his ^^ Essay" as a basis 
for their speculations, some denying all knowl- 
edge of such a thing as matter, others affirming 
that we have knowledge of matter, only. 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 29 

15. Berkeley. George Berkeley was born at 
Killcrin, Ireland, 1684, and died at Oxford, 1753. 
He published ''A Treatise Concerning the Prin- 
ciples of Human Knowledge," which he popular- 
ized in his ''Three Dialogues between Hylas and 
Philonous.'^ Berkeley had studied Locke. Like 
Locke, Hobbes and Bacon, he was an experimen- 
talist. But he found Locke to be a materialist. 
Locke had allowed to pass the hypothesis that 
matter can think. Berkeley justly argued that if 
this were allowed, we could not affirm the imma- 
teriality and perpetuity of the thinking principle 
in man. For, with the disintegration of the mat- 
ter there must be an end to the individual. If it 
be allowed that matter can think, then, as Locke 
offers no proof to the contrary, it might be in- 
ferred that our thinking principle, the substratum 
of our thoughts, is but matter. This, Berkeley 
undertook to combat. But how did he do so ? By 
trying to establish that there is no matter, that 
we can not affirm its existence; and, hence, as 
something, at least, is^ as we do exist, that the 
thinking principle in us, the soul, must be imma- 
terial. Berkeley's intentions were good. He 
thought he was lajdng a firm philosophical basis 
for the existence of revelation. Locke had said 
that we have no idea of substance except that it 
is an unknown reality; that we know only qual- 
ities. He laid dow^n, that extension and impene- 
trability — imphdng bulk, figure, number, etc. — 
are in bodies, in that unknown reality, material 



30 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

substance. Other qualities, color, sound, taste, 
odor, beauty, etc., are in ourselves. They are 
ideas, perceptions, occasioned by we know not 
what, pertaining to the unli:nown reality. Here 
Berkeley began, saying that if there is no ground 
to affirm an objective reality corresponding to 
the ideas of color, odor, taste, etc., neither is there 
any ground to affirm an objective reality corre- 
sponding to the ideas of extension and impene- 
trability. Hence, if we can not affirm the objec- 
tive existence of qualities, we can not affirm the 
existence of that unknoAvn reality, material sub- 
stance, whose existence was postulated by Locke 
in order to have something in which the primary 
qualities, extension and impenetrability, might 
exist. Hence we can not affirm matter in the 
sense of Locke. Real things, then, for him 
(Berkeley) are ideas: '^I am not for changing 
things into ideas, but rather ideas into things. '^ 
He assumed that what we perceive is simply the 
idea, that this perception is our knowledge, and 
that we may not make knowledge to consist in 
ideas being true representations of originals. For, 
as the supposed originals, he says, are in them- 
selves unknown, it is impossible for us to know 
how far our ideas resemble them at all. We can- 
not (could not), therefore, if we insist on knowl- 
edge being representative, be sure that we have 
an^^ real knowledge, since the presumed originals 
must remain unknown. The result of all which 
is that we are (would be) thrown by this suppo- 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 31 

sition into the most hopeless and abandoned scep- 
ticism. How, then, according to Berkeley, do we 
get these ideas'? That does not matter for onr 
present treatise, bnt he is satisfied even with the 
supposition that they may be formed in ns di- 
rectly by the divine mind. He is as confused in 
his terminology as is Locke. But let us see how 
another writer has driven his admission into that 
^'most hopeless and abandoned scepticism'' which 
Berkeley in his unmetaphysical gentleness was 
steering into, when he thought he had left it be- 
hind. 

16. Hume. David Hume was born in 1711 at 
Edinburg, where he died in 1776. His chief work 
touching our present subject is the ''Enquiry 
Concerning Human Understanding,'' the princi- 
ples of which are applied in the ''Enquiry Con- 
cerning the Principles of Morals." He starts 
from the speculations bequeathed by Berkeley, 
whom he pronounces to be the best guide to scepti- 
cism. He modifies slightly the terminology of 
Berkeley, as Berkeley had slightly modified the 
terminology of Locke. Accepting Berkeley's dic- 
tum that we can not know material substance or 
Diatter, and that we know only our ideas or im- 
pressions, he continues that for the same reasons 
we can not know immaterial substance or soul. 
For, if we could know it, this knowledge would 
(•ome only through ideas or impressions, through 
the states in which we find ourselves of seeing. 



32 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

hearing, feeling, willing, etc. Now these impres- 
sions conld tell ns of substance only in as much 
as they resembled substance. But not being them- 
selves what we assume to be substance, in fact, 
being quite different from what we assume as 
substance, they certainly do not resemble sub- 
stance, and can supply us with no knowledge of 
it. Hence, we can know nothing but a succession 
of ideas or impressions. Is there any reality 
corresponding to these ideas! We know not. 
Hence, he concludes, we have always equal reason 
to affirm any fact or its contradictory; for we 
can have ideas equally well of both. He will ad- 
mit the truth of thought about abstract quantity 
and number, as, that two and two being four, two 
and two cannot be five. But that any one thing 
exists, this he will not allow can be known. Hence 
for all history he says, '^commit it then to the 
flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry 
and illusion." Yet he spent much time over his 
History of England. Was he more consistent than 
Berkeley, whose declining years were devoted to 
enhancing the good will of men towards the use 
of tar- water in therapeutics ! Think of curing an 
ailing body with tar-water when there is no body 
to ail! 

17. Descartes. Eene Descartes was born at La 
Haye, France, in 1596; and died at Stockholm, 
Sweden, in 1650. His chief works, as pertinent 
to our present inquiry, were *^A Treatise on the 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 33 

Correct Method of Using our Reason and Seeking 
for Scientific Truth/' (in French) ; and ''Medita- 
tions on the Fundamental Philosophy" (in 
Latin). Descartes was a man of naturally tran- 
scendent genius. Only the mind of genius can 
make a great mistake, create a following and stir 
I the intellectual world to combat. Bent upon se- 
curing a firm basis for knowledge, he put as his 
foundation the calling in question all that he had 
I previously accepted by reason or authority. He 
tried to put himself in the state of a universal 
doubt. What had he, then, to begin with! The 
I fact of the doubt as a mental act of which he was 
conscious. Upon this doubt the whole superstruc- 
ture of knowledge is to be reared. Affirming the 
doubt he has to affirm his own existence, because 
I the doubt is his. As with Bacon all knowledge was 
to be arrived at by induction; so with Descartes 
all is to be obtained by deduction. A clear idea, 
the clearness of an idea is to be the test of the 
objective value of such idea. He has a clear idea 
of God ; it is the idea of a Being necessarily exist- 
ing. From this idea he concludes to the existence 
of God. From the truthfulness of God, bestower 
of the faculties, he deduces the veracity of our 
faculties perceiving objective truth. 

There is an inconsistency at the beginning of 
the method of Descartes. For it is precisely the 
veracity of the mental affirmation that he calls in 
question ; and yet he assumes this veracity in the 
verv affirmation of the doubt. 



34 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

He also takes a very disastrous assumption as 
the lirst principle upon which to build np certified 
knowledge after he has torn away everything be- 
side the affirmation of his doubt. He says that 
he affirms his doubt, or thought, or self thinking, 
because he has a clear and distinct idea of it. 
Thus, if Ave are to take him at his word, the basis 
of his theoretic explanation of the reliability of 
thought is pure idealism. And, in fact, the very 
]iext step is to affirm the existence of God out of 
his idea of God. 

On the whole, the method of Descartes goes 
around in a circle; if, indeed, Ave alloAv it to get 
out of the doubt and into the circle. For he 
affirms the A^alidity of the mental act in the per- 
ception of the doubt, basing the affirmation on the 
clear perception of the doubt. C'lear and distinct 
concept or idea, then, he makes the test of ob- 
jectiA^e truth. Forming a clear idea of God, he 
affirms the existence of God. Finally, on the 
truthfulness of God, the bestoAver of the cognitiA^e 
faculties, he bases the truthfulness of those facul- 
ties and hence the truthfulness of that original 
mental act wherein he was conscious of his 
thought and his existence, upon which mental act, 
however, assumed too early in his process as 
valid, he has built his A\^hole system. 

18. Kant. Immanuel Kant was born at Koe- 
nigberg, in Eastern Prussia, 1724. He died in the 
same toA\m, 1804. He Avrote the Critique of Pure 



A CPI AFTER OF DISCORD. OO 

Ileason, Critique of Practical Reason, Introduc- 
tion to Metaphysics, Critique of the Judgment, 
etc., etc. Kant was endowed by nature with a 
liigh degree of the speculative genius. Bold like 
Descartes, like Descartes he attacked the problem 
of knowledge in a novel way. He made a desper- 
ate attempt to steer a clear course between the 
pure deductions of Descartes and the pure sen- 
sisni of experimentalists. It was particularly a 
desire to correct the sceptical influence of Hume 
which drove him to the task. He formulated a 
theory in which he introduced both the objective 
perception and the innate idea, intuition and con- 
cept, as he calls them. The two combined form 
knowledge. The idea or concept without some 
object to apply it to is valueless ; and equally 
valueless is the perception of an object, the intui- 
tion without a concept or idea applied to it. 
Thus in the intuition of the objects that come 
under sense, since they are all aifected by the 
conditions of space and time, and as space and 
time can not come under sense perception, and 
as nevertheless, the objects are known as in 
space and time, space and time must reside in 
the sense power as a priori '^forms'' which are 
applied to and not received from the object. 
Similarly, for Kant, there exist in the mind 
a priori concepts which do not depend for their 
existence upon experience, yet which are awak- 
ened by the experience of that to which they are 
to be applied. Such mental forms are cause. 



36 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

substance, unity, plurality, etc. Finally, Kant 
divides judgments into 1, Analytical or purely a 
priori, which exjoress merely the signification of 
a term, the subject and predicate being identical 
in their total comprehension, as, a triangle is a 
figure formed by three sides enclosed so as to 
exhibit three interior angles; 2, judgments purely 
a posteriori, or Synthetic, experimental Synthetic 
judgments, as he styles them, where the idea of 
the predicate in no wise enters into the idea of 
the subject, and the judgment can be formed only 
by the individual experience of the synthesis, as, 
this liquid is green: ?>, judgments which he calls 
Synthetic a priori These last judgments he calls: 
Synthetic, because he can not find the idea of the 
predicate in the subject; and a priori, because 
they are universal and, being once understood, 
are, without further experience, seen to be uni- 
versal. Kant's whole theory of knowledge is 
based upon the explanation of the possibility of 
the Synthetic a priori judgment. For this pur- 
pose did he invent those innate concepts or 
^^forms. " Such judgments are the following: 
Five and two are seven; every effect demands a 
cause. For a brief discussion of these judgments 
see ^^Laws of Thought," nn. 54-57. 

In regard to all the a priori ^ ^forms'' of Kant 
and his Synthetic a priori judgments this is to 
be said: they can all be formed and are formed 
very readily from a very few experiences. The 
general idea of space is a deduction. The first 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 37 

perception of an extended thing gives an idea 
of limit. Two or three such perceptions will wake 
any mind to the deduction of a possible indefinite 
space. It is the same with the idea of time. In 
the unity of our being, consciousness supplies us 
with the data to deduce the general idea of simul- 
taneity; and memory, that of succession. 

Kant was a man of books, not of men. In the 
eighty years of his life he was never one hundred 
miles from the town in w^hich he Avas born and 
where he died. His life Avas spent without con- 
tact with the rude intellect. He does not recog- 
nize the budding and blossoming of knowledge as 
found in the individual life of every child. There 
are many deductions which are made very readily 
and are made ver^^ early in life, and which are 
thus found ready made, and just as habitual as 
the most elementary first principles, at the time 
when we arrive at the stage of life where the 
mind gives itself to philosophic reflection. This 
Kant did not recognize. His study seems to have 
been made upon his own mind in a day of ma- 
turity when it was already arrived at a point of 
philosophic development which few minds, in- 
deed, do over reach, and where he assumed, as 
innate ^^forms," certain ideas that he had become 
possessed of by the process of an unconscious 
but entirely natural deduction. 

19. Fichte. Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born 
at Rammenau, Upper Silesia, in 1762, and died 



38 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

at Berlin, 1814. His cliief work that concerns us, 
here, is the ^'Groundwork of the Science of 
Knowledge." Fichte accepted the Kantian as- 
sumption of innate ideas or ''forms." But he 
went further than Kant. He wished to derive 
all knowledge from the "forms." Kant had al- 
lowed two elements in the x:>roduction of knowl- 
edge, the stimulation coming from the object and 
the form or concept applied by the mind. Fichte 
wishes to work up everything from a single prin- 
ciple. For his single principle he assumes the act 
of consciousness, "I am I." Yet this is not any 
individual act of consciousness, but a general 
principle of equality as A=A with consciousness 
attached [sic Fichte]. But this implies that "I 
am not not-1. ' ' Thus we have established the dis- 
tinction between the ego and the non-ego, between 
self and not-self [sic] . But this ego and this non- 
ego are not any individuals in particular; they 
are indeterminate, universal. However, they are 
contradictory, and there cannot be two universal 
contradictories, for the one destroys the other. 
Yet there they are, and what are we to do? The 
very fact of each one must necessarily impose 
the idea of limitation upon the other. And thus 
we come to it that I am my own limited self, ego, 
I ; and you become your own limited self, another 
ego; and the things around us become for us the 
limited non-ego. I am a part of the not-I, for 
you ; and 3^ou are a part of the not-I, for me. But 
enough of this for our present purpose, which is 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 39 

simply to show the variations that have been 
executed npon the theme of the ^^ Theory of 
Knowledge." For my own poor self I can not 
find or feign within myself any experience of 
Fichte's proposed solution to the great problem. 

20. Schelling. Hegel. F. W. von Schelling 
was born at Leonberg in 1775, and died in Switzer- 
land, 1854. George W. F. Hegel was born at 
Stuttgart, in 1770, and died at Berlin in 1831. 
Schelling and Hegel are sometimes mentioned in 
connection with the theory of knowledge, but their 
writings have practically nothing to do with it. 
They start from Fichte's position. Schelling had 
been a pupil of Fichte and Hegel began as a dis- 
ciple of Schelling. Their writings are rather con- 
cerned with the ontological order, tending from 
Fichte 's knowledge-theor}^ to pantheism, assert- 
ing the identity of all that is, under a new title, 
the *^ Philosophy of the Absolute." From Fichte 's 
^ thought producing object" Schelling passes on 
to ^'object producing thought," and, from this, 
asserts absolute identity of the ego and the non- 
ego. Hegel presses on to evolve everything out 
of thought and to identify even contradictories in 
what he calls the absolute, Avhich is an idea or 
thought. Hegel added the finishing touch to 
Kant's confusion of philosophical terminology. 
If Ave have mentioned Schelling and Hegel, it is 
to show how serious coiisequences may follow 
in ontology or metaphysics from the principles 



40 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

which one accepts as undeiiying the theory of 
knowledge, and how careful we must be in phi- 
losophy to confine ourselves to discovery. There 
is still plenty of room in philosophy for discov- 
ery; but we must avoid invention. Invention be- 
longs to the romance. In philosophy we do not 
want merely to find out how things might he ex- 
plained if they were as we will romantically sup- 
pose them to be; but we want to know what we 
can of things as they are. 

21. A Summary. In the above list of writers 
we have every shade of hesitation, oversight and 
denial. One will admit no perception but sense- 
perception. Accordingly, as sense can reach only 
matter, we must limit our affirmations to matter. 
Whatever else there may be, we dare not affirm 
it, because sense cannot reach it. Another denies 
all perception of matter, assuming that we per- 
ceive only our ideas and thus cannot affirm the 
existence of an outside material world. A third, 
adopting the negations of both the first and 
second, hesitates to admit any ground for the 
affirmation of either matter or mind. A fourth, 
steering between the first and second and wishing 
to admit both matter and mind, individual ex- 
istence and general principles, thinks to gain his 
end b}^ assuming the existence, in the mind, of a 
store of innate ideas and judgments, which are 
drawn upon, as occasion requires, to be attached 
to certain indefinite perceptions that are waiting 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 41 

to be thus transformed into knowledge. Others^ 
finally, captivated by the simple method of as- 
suming innate ideas to account for knowledge, go 
on to the length of asserting that innate ideas 
constitute the root and source, the sum and con- 
tent of all knowledge. 

22. Positivism. We can hardly pass on with- 
out some reference to a name which has been 
used, in our day, to advertise as philosophy what 
is, in reality, a dogmatic, unfounded denial of all 
philosophy — the name, ^'positivism." The ap- 
pellation, ''positive philosophy," was first em- 
ployed by Auguste Comte (b. Montpellier, 1798; 
d. Paris, 1857). AVith it he labeled six volumes, 
Cours cle PhilosopJiie Positive, published in 1842. 
The six volumes gather dust upon the shelves. 
But the word, "positive," had a charm about it. 
Comte, a mathematician, who boldy styles mathe- 
matics the basis of all science, starts out by de- 
claring that the human mind, in regard to knowl- 
edge, passes through three stages, the theologi- 
cal, the metaphysical and the positive. Accord- 
ing to him, the first two stages have been passed 
and hence religion, as men understand it, and 
rational philosophy must be regarded as by- 
gones. Thus we have ceased, if we are fully de- 
veloped in mind, to ascribe anything to a supreme 
being or to any reason-discovered, hidden some- 
thing which can be called cause; we are said to 
have arrived at the highest sta^e, which is that of 



42 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

positive science. This positive science embraces 
only what can be gotten at immediately and di- 
rectly by the senses. These facts or phenomena 
perceived by the senses are classified; and it is 
this classification that constitutes science ! There 
is thus no science except of what can be seen, 
heard, touched, etc. Even in our classification of 
facts we may not affirm cause and effect; we may 
affirm only, what the senses reach, i. e., sensible 
facts, phenomena, appearances, which are per- 
ceived as following one another, or in sequence. 
So that the very laws of nature will come simply 
to this : that we have observed a sequence of phe- 
nomena in the past; and as for the future, well, 
we must merely assert that what has been ivlll 
be, whilst refusing to admit the reason, the reality 
of cause and effect. (See ^^Laws of Thought,'^ 
Nos. 123, 124, 125.) 

It is these last assumptions of Comte, taken, 
indeed, from Hume, that are, to-day, styled posi- 
tivism, the positive philosophy. Narrowing it- 
self down to limits that preclude the dignified 
labor of thinking, it brands everything outside 
of itself as insolubly dubious. What an attraction 
there is here, what inducements of repose for 
those w^ho are tired of the muddy speculations of 
idealism! And what bright hope for the ma- 
terialist! It gives him a new name for his old 
one of which he has grown ashamed. He can, 
now, style himself a positivist. Positivism, alone, 
is science. Positivism, alone, is philosophy. And 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 43 

who may not now be a philosopher f I am 
a chemist, a geologist. I am classifying facts 
that come under my eyes. Positivism, will I but 
adopt its name, offers me the title of philosopher. 
For it is the only philosophy; and I have but to 
declare myself, to become one of the ^'only^' phi- 
losophers. I have but to repeat tenaciously that 
I admit nothing but what I perceive directly by, 
my sense — and — I am a philosopher. There is 
but one thing to be w^ondered at in this connec- 
tion. It is, that men, such as J. S. Mill and Her- 
bert Spencer, who had genius enough to immor- 
talize themselves in writing true philosophy, 
should be so ensnared by the caption, that their 
works have now to be read with the accompani- 
ment of a glossary of their errors. 

Positivism denies the intellectual, immediate 
perception of what we call a priori truths. These 
are the truths which, upon their presentation, are 
seen to be universal, if the meaning of the terms 
be known. Such, for instance, are the following: 
* ' The same thing cannot both exist and not exist 
at the same time," ^^Two parallel lines produced 
will never meet." These principles we are told 
by the ^"positivist" are not evident. If they are 
known, it is only by repeated experiences of past 
facts which we generalize for the past, and assert 
somehoiv for the future. Mr. Mill will allow that 
one person can make the generalization for him- 
self. Mr. Spencer throws himself out of the 
reach of argument by asserting that the general- 



44 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. . 

ization, for the past, has been going on in the ex- 
pediences of countless ages, and comes to ns ready 
made. We are denied the power of perceiving 
tlie universal value of a priori principles, and are 
allowed at most to say that we do not know 
whether there are any such absolute, universal, 
invariable truths. Let Mr. Mill speak: ^^We 
should probably be able to conceive a round 
square [ !] as easily as a hard square * * * if it 
were not that, in our uniform experience at the 
mo]nent when a thing begins to be round it ceases 
to be Ksquare * * * We can not conceive two and 
two as five, because an inseparable association 
compels us to conceive it as four." (Examina- 
tion of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, second edi- 
tion, pages 68, 69.) Thus, in positivism, we have 
really no rational ground for holding that to- 
morrow our two debts of tw^o dollars each shall 
not make a sum total of five dollars. This doing 
aw^ay with the possible knowledge of the meta- 
physical or universal anahi:ical principle sweeps 
deduction from the process of thought. (See 
'^Laws of Thought," Nos. 55 and 123.) But it 
also renders induction impossible, for induction 
requires the admission of at least the principle of 
causality (^^Laws of Thought," Nos. 123, 124). 
Thus the power of reasoning is explicity repudi- 
ated, and knowledge is left to contain merely a 
disconnected series of facts perceptible to sense. 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 45 

23. What have we to offer? To all these ' ' sys- 
tems" we have to oppose only some very simple 
teachings of our nature in regard to human 
thought and action, without denying what is plain- 
ly put before us, and without affirming what we 
have no warrant for. It is well to note that the 
essentials concerning this question of knowledge 
enter into the stock of information that is common 
to human kind. The conviction of the objective 
value of thought is a necessity of our very exis- 
tence. If, then, we have mentioned all these the- 
ories or systems, which in one way or another 
stand opposed to the sum of the facts which 
nature presents, it must be kept in mind that these 
same theories are the respective personal fictions 
of so many individual thinkers, each one in con- 
flict with all the others, and all of them in conflict 
with the convictions of the rest of mankind. This 
double discord is already the strongest presump- 
tion against them all — which presumption is en- 
hanced by the acknowledgement that no one of 
the originators would have deemed it less than 
folly to give the test to his own theory in the most 
insignificant matter of practical (wery day life. 
We have not mentioned all who have contributed 
to the discord ; but we have named some leaders ; 
and, amongst leaders we have selected for our 
brief, yet wearisome, and nevertheless important 
review, those whose ** systems" would seem to 
cover, as has been said, every shade of denial or 
hesitation in the matter of the realitv of knowl- 



46 THE TRUTJI OF THOUGHT. 

edge. And we have mentioned these theories, be 
it again stated, also because many a student, upon 
espying a theory that is new, startling and 
shrouded in the mists of an obscure terminology, 
has deserted his good judgment to run after the 
novelty. And many there are who will cling to 
the pursuit because they regard as deep and 
learned whatsoever they do not understand. They 
are ever ready to abandon what is evident in 
favor of what is obscure and unintelligible. It 
makes them think, they say. Yes, indeed; and it 
keeps them thinking. 

24. Our Course Outlined. We follow a middle 
course. But it is not a middle course in the sense 
of being eclectic. It recognizes something with 
each of the theories in the discord. But it is not 
made up of selections from them all. It is the 
original whole of which they are exaggerated 
parts. It is *' middle," only because they are 
wandering departures from it. It is ^'middle" 
because it embraces on both sides and still keeps 
its equilibrium; whilst the ^^ systems," intent up- 
on tlie view^ at one side, let go their hold upon the 
other, and topple over to the right and left upon 
the course. 

We take our stand with mankind at largo; 
with the ablest as w^ell as the humblest minds of 
peoples past and present. We put ourselves in 
accord with that magnificent harmony of human 
consent which has persevered invariable amid 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 47 

all the variations of time, clime, race, education 
and language; and which, hence, must be based 
upon the fundamental note of truth entoned by 
the voice of nature. We do, therefore, recognize, 
as indubitable, the following: 

1. We are aware, each of us, of an individual 
personality which constitutes for each of us a 
^^self,''an'^Ego,"an'*L^' 

2. Each individual self knows self as distinct 
from a vast university of things which are not 
that self. 

3. Each self remains constant as a distinct 
individuality amid the great university of things 
not self. 

4. Through channels belonging to self, that 
is through what we call external senses, sight, 
hearing, smell, taste and touch, we come to know 
of the existence of matter which is not self and of 
a body or matter which belongs to self. 

5. By imagination, imaginative memory, we 
can hold before us, in picture, what has been per- 
ceived by an outward sense, and this even when 
the outward sense has been shut off from com- 
munication with the outer world of matter. And 
by this imagination, which is also constructive, 
we can put before us, in picture, combinations 
which we fashion from the varied store of mem- 
ory. 

6. By a power which we call mind or intellect 
we can perceive, as connected with the things 
that sense perceives, something that cannot be 



48 thp: truth of thought. 

taken in by sense-perception; that is to say, we 
can generalize. Sense can get at the individual, 
concrete thing, only: this triangle, this orange, 
that triangle, those oranges, etc. By considera- 
tion of the individual, the mind can form an idea, 
a concept, a notion, triangle, orange, which does 
not specify this or that individual, but fits to any 
individual triangle or orange, and embraces in 
its application every triangle or orange past, 
present and future, and even the possible orange 
that never shall be grown. 

7. There are general a priori principles 
(^^Laws of Thought,'' No. 55). These the mind 
can perceive to be incontrovertible and of uni- 
versal application, by mere reflection upon the 
signification of the principles and without going 
into the applications. 

8. The mind can combine general principles, 
or individual facts and principles; and, in the 
combination and comparison of them, it can per- 
ceive other facts and principles. 

9. All these perceptions constitute knowledge 
in the strict sense. All have an objective value. 
Admit knowledge in one case, and you will be 
forced to admit it in all others. The reason why 
we admit that self exists, that this book exists, 
that two and two make four, is, ultimately, one 
and the same. 

10. Certified knowledge is not a prerogative 
of the philosopher. It is found in every conscious 
self. The philosopher applies himself specifically 



A CHAPTER OF DISCORD. 49 

to the consideration of the grounds of certitude. 
The rest of men, otherwise occupied in acting up- 
on knowledge in which they are secure, meditate 
less upon the ultimate ground of their security. 

And thus we have put an end to this long and 
wearisome chapter. 



CHAPTER IV. CONSCIOUSNESS AND 
EVIDENCE. 

A Flea for Method — Is the Act of Consciousness ISim- 
ultaneous with Thought? — Memory and Personal 
Identity — Object of Consciousness — Some Leading 
Facts — The Ground or Motive for the Declarations of 
Consciousness — Importance of Evidence. 

25. A Plea for Method. We trust we sliall not 
be charged with doing an unwarranted thing in 
entering upon our subject in a new way. We 
have chosen to begin with a few remarks on Con- 
sciousness. Our reasons for so doing are these: 

In the first place, it is inconvenient to assume, 
at the outset, without a word of explanation, a 
point which, later on, may be seen to have been 
so admitted and may, thus, cause confusion, and 
even give rise to distrust in an inquiring mind. 
Now, every treatise upon thought must begin by 
recognizing that we are conscious of the exist- 
tence of our thought. W^e must, therefore, accept 
as facts certain acts which are within us, and 
which are accepted by consciousness as being 
within us. Remember that we are, here, speak- 
ing solelv of that which is within us. 

50 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVIDENCE. 51 

In the second place, when dealing with erron- 
eous theories, it is of great service, for the sake 
of correcting them gently, to have found some 
common fact upon which all agree. But it is an 
absolute necessity with every one who theorizes 
upon thought, to admit the testimony of his own 
consciousness declaring to him the fact of Ms 
oivn thought. All the strange philosophies of the 
last three centuries do agree upon the fact of 
consciousness and upon its testimony to the ex- 
istence of thought as being a modification of the 
existing self. And so agreed are they on this as 
to make its acceptation an absolutely essential 
condition for not only the philosophy of the value 
of thought, but also for all philosophizing. 

Why should we not, therefore, begin where we 
shall have all parties in concord? The method 
will have, besides, a twofold advantage. It will 
provide the key for the correct reading of much 
erroneous or incautious writing on the subject of 
knowledge; and it will offer a way out of laby- 
rinthine problems, to those who have been seek- 
ing an exit by wrong roads. 

It will not even be necessary, here, to take up 
the psychological question as to whether con- 
sciousness is or is not distinct from any or all of 
our knowledge powers or faculties. We have 
simply to recognize that we have the power of 
knowing ourselves and the fact of our thought. 
We may, of course, distinguish consciousness as 



52 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

power, act and state, though all go by the one 
name — consciousness. 

When you say ^ ' I am conscious of my thought, ' ' 
you imply both a power of self-perception, and 
an act by which you have perceived yourself to 
be thinking, and also a condition or state of mind, 
which may be described as repose in the posses- 
sion of a given item of knowledge regarding self. 
We call them all consciousness. The word, from 
its termination, ^^ness,'' does strictly denote only 
a state ; but, by reason of a deficiency of language, 
we are obliged to use the same word to express 
the power and the act. 

Considering consciousness as a power, there is 
no reason to distinguish it from intellect, but it 
specifies the more general term, intellect, as pos- 
sessing a special capability of directing its cog- 
nitive act to self, to the ego, the human personal- 
ity, which it perceives together with the acts of 
cognition through which the self, the ego, the 
human personality may be passing. 

26. Is the Act of Consciousness Simultaneous 
with Thought? This is regarded as a very subtle 
question by all who have interrogated their own 
consciousness for an answer. In every act where- 
by the human person knows, there is, if not an 
absolutely' simultaneous, at least a quasi-simul- 
taneous accompaniment of consciousness whereby 
the same human person recognizes the cognitive 
act as belonging to self. When I know, I know 



coNSCiousiirEss and evidence. 53 

that I know. Althougli this act by which I know 
that I know may not be very explicit, it is difficult 
to see how it can be separated in time from each 
individual act of knowing. Whether it be abso- 
lutely simultaneous or not, it is so indescribably 
close upon the present act of knowledge that it 
has received the name of direct, or simultaneous, 
or concomitant consciousness, to distinguish it 
from the act of consciousness whereby a distinctly 
past act is recognized as being a past modifica- 
tion of the still present self, such recognization 
of the past self being correspondingly styled an 
act of reflex consciousness or of after-conscious- 
ness. The terms, direct and reflex, are employed 
originally to indicate two diverse characters in 
the act of perception. In the direct perception the 
faculty goes direct (straight, so to say) to the 
object, which is not-self. A reflex perception, 
then, will be one whereby the intellect, in virtue 
of its peculiar efficiency, reflects (bends back, to 
use the material expression, since we have no 
other) upon its own previous act, taking that act 
as its object for perception and perceiving the 
same. Thus the consciousness accompanying each 
act and recognizing it as here and now belonging 
to self, comes to be called direct; and the con- 
sciousness accompanying the reflex act and recog- 
nizing the prior act perceived as belonging at 
some distinctly previous time to the present iden- 
tical self, comes to be called reflex. For the sake 
of a distinction we might, when speaking of con- 



54 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

sciousiiess (which brings the self-element into the 
perception), use the term, simultaneous or con- 
comitant, instead of direct ; and we might say con- 
tinuous consciousness or after-consciousness in- 
stead of reflex consciousness. 

To guard against misunderstanding, it may be 
well to note that the expression '' reflex act of 
consciousness" has a wider signification than the 
expression ' ' reflex act of intellect. ' ' In the strict 
meaning of terms, intellect is said to reflect back 
upon a prior act of intellect. Consciousness, 
whatever consciousness may be, goes back to any 
prior perception, sensitive or intellectual, that 
may have existed in the totality of the ego. This 
may not be clear just now; but it is well to have 
the distinction recorded. 

27. Memory and Personal Identity. We hold, 
and we must hold, that the human person is a 
unit. Self, the ego, the me, is the same self to- 
day, yesterday, to-morrow. The continuous iden- 
tity of the same self is manifested to us in the 
repeated states of consciousness. It is memory, 
mysterious memory, that links together in knowl- 
edge, and thus preserves in consciousness, the 
identity of self to whom successive acts of self- 
knowledge and states of consciousness belong. 

Memory is the power ^ve possess of laying by 
knowledge and bringing it up again. It is the 
po"wer of reviving, so to say, a past state of con- 
sciousness. It might be objected to this assertion, 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVIDENCE. 55 

that when we remember, we very rarely call to 
mind a past state of consciousness. True enough, 
when we remember, we do not always make an 
explicit consideration of some past state of con- 
sciousness. Nevertheless, in every act of mem- 
ory there is an implicit reference to a past 
state of consciousness. You may say that you re- 
member things that are altogether outside of con- 
sciousness and have no relation to it ; as the pur- 
chase of Alaska by the United States, an eruption 
of Mt. Aetna, the first expedition up the Congo. 
Still, consider what you w^ish here to signify 
in saying, ^^I remember." You wish to state 
that, at a certain time past, you possessed certain 
items of knowledge regarding what was outside 
of you and that the knowledge was bound up with 
a self which was conscious of its knowledge and 
itself at that time past. You mean also, that the 
past conscious self is identical with the present 
conscious self, and that this identity of self, the 
human person, is proclaimed by memory. You 
imply, that, knowledge, possessed by past self, 
may be revived in present self. Finalty, you use 
the expression, ^^I remember" and not ^^I know," 
for the purpose of indicating the identity of pres- 
ent self and past self, the continuity of conscious- 
ness, and the linking by memory of that prior 
consciousness of knowledge to the present self, 
conscious of its own past state of conscious knowl- 
edge. All this you ni^an. And this process you 
go through, implicitly; nay, perhaps, even ex- 



56 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

plicity; — the process, like all others that are es- 
sential to human existence, having become so 
rapid and spontaneous as to elude observation. 
At all events, nature puts the whole proceeding 
into a formula for you: ^'I remember.'' 

28. Object of Consciousness. The object of a 
faculty is that upon which the faculty exercises 
itself. The object of consciousness is self, I, the 
individual human personality, as undergoing 
some modification of self. These modifications 
are, first, all cognitions or perceptions; secondly, 
all modifications with which cognition is inti- 
mately connected and necessarily associated. In 
this way we bring under the object of conscious- 
ness all volitions, or acts of will, which are, neces- 
sarily, accompanied by thought ; as also pain and 
pleasure, which are perceived as being departures 
from the normal condition of self: and we ex- 
clude such things as the regular circulation of the 
blood and the normal bodily temperature, which 
we do not perceive as modifications or changes of 
self. 

29. Some Leading Facts. Some leading facts 
reached by consciousness and included in its ob- 
ject, are: 

1. The existence of self, of the me, the human 
person, perceived in every act of consciousness. 

2. The fact of thought : that is, judgment, men- 
tal assent or denial; ideas, the elements of judg- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVIDENCE. 57 

meiit; and reasoning, the combination of judg- 
ments. 

3. Certain states of self which consciousness 
inevitably connects with body-belonging-to-self, 
and perceives as impossible without that element 
of body-belonging-to-self. Such are the states 
called seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. 
Consciousness, also, links these states, by inevit- 
able connection, to separate parts, respectively, of 
the body-belonging-to-self: to eyes, ears, nostrils, 
tongue and palate, body surface. 

4. A twofold representation by idea: the idea 
sometimes relating to but one individual, and 
sometimes embracing all the individuals of a 
class ; as, the idea of this man and of man in 
general. 

5. Finally, consciousness testifies to an irre- 
pressible tendency of the conscious self to regard 
its states, which are states of cognition, as indica- 
tive, sometimes, of realities in self, and some- 
times, of realities out of self. 



30. The Ground or Motive for the Declarations 
of Consciousness. This is something to be deter- 
mined very accurately, for upon it must rest the 
whole of our treatise. Why do I declare, without 
hesitation, the fact of my thought and of myself! 
Because I am conscious of it. But what do I 
mean by saying that I am conscious of it ? I mean 
that I know it. But, how or why do I know it! 
I know it because being something knowable, and 



58 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

as knowable being within the scope of my know- 
ing power, it is presented to me in such a way as 
to allow me to exercise my power of knowing upon 
it — or, more correctly, it is presented to me in 
such a way that I am forced to exercise my know- 
ing power upon it, that is, to know it. What is 
there, then, in the fact, in my thought and the 
existence of self, which constitutes the reason, the 
ultimate reason, w^hy my knowing power must 
start into activity, upon the presence of the fact 
— and know the fact f This something we call the 
evidence of the fact. The fact is evident, visible 
(mentally), perceptible to me; and my knowing 
power (consciousness), which acts spontaneously 
upon the presentation of evident truth, must know 
it. I must hold to the objective value of the fact 
or truth so perceived as evident. I hold to it 
without any fear of error, that is to say, with 
certitude: and this I do, because it is evident to 
me. In assigning reasons for my certitude, I 
cannot go beyond this evidence. 

31. Importance of Evidence. Upon the admis- 
sion of the value of evidence as a motive of certi- 
tude, as the final motive, depends the whole ques- 
tion concerning the objective value of knowledge. 
Admit evidence as a sufficient motive for certitude 
in the assertion of self and the thoughts and vari- 
ous modifications of self, and you must admit it 
to be a sufficient motive for affirming with certi- 
tude the objective truth of existences and general 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVIDENCE. 59 

principles that are neither self nor modifications 
of self. And if yon will not admit evidence to be 
a sufficient motive for certitude regarding self 
and its modifications, you cannot affirm even your 
own existence and must therefore be considered 
to be outside of our audience. 



CHAPTER V. THE AFFIRMATION OF AN 
OBJECT THAT IS NOT SELF. 

The Great Question — To he Conscious is to Know — 
Transit to N on- Self — Example — General Inference. 

32. The Great Question. We have seen how all 
the theorists agree with the common sense, the 
common judgment of mankind, in admitting the 
value of the testimony of consciousness for the 
existence of self and the modifications of self. 
The great question, now, is : Can we in any way 
secure a certified conviction of the reality of 
something that is not self? Consciousness testi- 
fies that we do seem, at least, to perceive that 
which is not self and that we are thus inclined to 
affirm something that is not self. All the theorists 
admit this ; but they fear to affirm, uniformly, the 
objective value of these ^^seemings." Thus we 
seem to perceive a material world as if it were 
objectively true, as if it really existed — as really, 
indeed, as self itself. We seem, also, to perceive 
certain general principles such as ^Hwo and two 
are four,'' as if they had an objective value inde- 
pendently of the perception. These are not-self. 
May we affirm them with the same security with 
which we affirm self? The answer is, Yes. 

60 



d 



AFFIRMATION OF NOT-SELF. 61 

33. To be Conscious is to Know. Let us for the 

time being rid ourselves of the expression, to be 
conscious, and use its equivalent. To be conscious 
is to know self. It is, then, an act of knowing 
with this special feature that the object known 
is self. To be conscious {conscire), then, is noth- 
ing more than to know {.scire). The special term 
made up by compounding with the prefix con, 
indicates* that the object known is self. And 
^ why is self known! Because, being knowable, 
it comes with its evidence within reach of our 
knowing power. It is merely a knowable some- 
thing that hap jp ens to be self. And I affirm that 
something, solely because it is evident to me. 
And I affirm it to be self, because it presents itself 
to me with its credentials, that is, with its evi- 
dence as self. 

34. Transit to Non-Self. How, then, can I 
know and affirm as objectively true, that which 
is not self? In the very same manner and for the 
very same reason that I affirm self; that is, be- 
cause something which is not self, being in itself 
knowable, presents itself with its evidence to my 
knowing power to be known; and I am forced to 
know that w^hich is so presented to me, as I am 
forced to know myself. And as self is known to 
be self because it presents itself as self, so not- 
self is known to be not-self because it presents 
itself as not-self. So that if we will not affirm 



62 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

iion-self upon its evidence, neither have we any 
right to affirm self upon its evidence. 

35. Example., Let me be conscious of a thought. 
I am thinking of a deep, dark sky spangled with 
brilliant stars. I loiow the thought as mine. Yes, 
but the bright lights upon the dark canopy! I 
open and close my eyes. This action I know, also, 
as mine. I repeat the opening and closing of my 
eyes. There appears and disappears and re-ap- 
pears a brilliant vivid counterpart of my thought. 
Whilst my eyes are open, it is there; when my 
eyes are closed, it is gone. This brilliant splendor 
presents itself to me, not as something which is 
a modification of me, not as mixed up with the 
existence of myself; but as a something whose 
existence is distinct from and independent of 
myself. I know it as not-self; and I know it as 
such by the evidence of not- self wherewith it pre- 
sents itself to me. And just as in the perception 
or knomng of self I affirm self, so also, for the 
same reason, evidence, I affirm, with inevitable 
conviction, the objective value of non-self. I have 
a thought or a headache. The thought or head- 
ache presents itself to me as mine. I thereupon 
have a con^dction that it is mine. Of this con- 
viction, certified in the perception of what is evi- 
dent, I can not rid myself ; and I hold to it. The 
midnight glory of the stars presents itself to me 
as a something which excludes the element of 
myself. T have, thereupon, a conviction of that 



AFFIRMATION OF XOT-SELF. 63 

somethiiig, as strong as the conviction of my own 
thought; and simnltaneonsly I have a conviction 
that that something is distinct from me. Of this 
conviction, certified in the perception of what is 
evident, I can not rid myself ; and I hold to it. 

Yes, you may say, but how do you know that 
these external objects are at all? I will answer 
you if you tell me how you know you have a head- 
ache. For your headache is, certainly, something 
distinct from your perceiving power. You will 
admit the existence of the headache, because per- 
ceived with its evidence of being in self. So you 
must admit the existence of that something which 
we call the golden glory of the stars, because it 
is perceived with its evidence of being out of self. 
If you deny the second you must deny the first, 
and, thus, put yourself in the bleak region out- 
side the pale of reason. 

36. General Inference. What we have just said 
of vision, applies with strict universality to all 
the knowing powers, and justifies us in affirming, 
upon evidence, the objective truth of the world 
of matter as perceived by sense; of the analytic 
principle, as reached by the intellect; of self, as 
reported by consciousness. 

In fact, to turn the tables upon our adversaries, 
we can make it harder for them to explain the 
affirmation of self than the affirmation of non- 
self. For, the affirmation of self, of my own 
thought, requires a reflex action whereby my 



64 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

thinking power turns upon itself; whereas the 
affirmation of non-self does not demand such re- 
flex action. 



CHAPTER VL SCEPTICISM. 

Dogmatic and Non-Dogmatic Scepticism — Partial Scep- 
ticism — Inconsistency — A Practical Consideration — 
An Advantage Gained — The Work Before Us. 

37. Dogmatic and Non-Dogmatic Scepticism. 
It is necessary, for a further advance, to clear the 
ground of scepticism. We are in position, now, 
to do so. We can have no hesitation hanging over 
ns. We are looking for the positive in rational 
philosophy. 

There are two kinds of scepticism, dogmatic 
and non-dogmatic. The dogmatic sceptic holds 
that the mind is and can be in the state of doubt, 
and of doubt only, in regard to all things except- 
ing the fact of the doubt. Of his doubt he claims 
to be certain; in this he is dogmatic. The non- 
dogmatic sceptic is not ready to assert even his 
doubt. If you question him, he will reply that he 
doubts whether he doubts; and he will doubt, 
again, whether he doubts that he doubts of his 
doubt — and so on ad indefinitum. 

You can have no argument with a non-dogmatic 
sceptic. For, he will doubt whether you are speak- 
ing to him. He will doubt of your existence and 
of HIS OWN ExiSTEN^CE. You cau hope, therefore, 

65 



66 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

to convince him of nothing. Happily, the sceptics 
of this class have been left behind in ancient 
Greece ; and are, now, spoken of only in amusing 
stories. 

The dogmatic sceptic offers ns a starting point 
for argument. This is his tenet, that he does 
doubt, that he is sure of his douht about all things, 
and that he is sure of nothing else. He also gives 
us a hold when he makes his inconsistent attempt 
to prove the necessity of his state of doubt. For 
in affirming his doubt, he affirms his own exis- 
tence ; and in trying to prove his doubt he assumes 
the objective value of reasoning, of judgments 
and of ideas. 

Dogmatic sceptics, open and avowed, in the 
universal sense just mentioned, we wdll hardly 
meet with. 

38. Partial Scepticism. But if we look back to 
Chapter III, we shall see that it is nothing less 
than scepticism that is concealed in the writings 
of Kant, Hume, Descartes, Spencer and others 
there mentioned ; a scepticism adorned with a new 
name, idealism, materialism, positivism, etc., in 
all of which there is a professed doubt (if not 
an open denial) of the objective value of certain 
acts of cognition. With the very same reason at 
hand for admitting the objective value of all acts 
of cognition, these writers admit the evidence in 
one case, and, very inconsistently, reject it in an- 



SCEPTICISM. 67 

other. In this sense, then, are they sceptics, and 
very dogmatic, too. 

Hence, the name of sceptic is very justly appli- 
cable to any man who rejects the testimony of any 
of the knov^ledge-faculties. In practical life, none 
of the writers referred to were sceptics — ^neither 
Kant nor Descartes, nor any of them. Even Hnme, 
called the father of modern sceptics, avowed 
that, in practice, he thought and acted as other 
men. But the mistake which all these writers 
have made is, that they have tried to explain the 
fact of knowledge by leaving out one or more 
of the knowledge-faculties. The idealist tries to 
explain cognition, without a veritable perception 
through the senses ; all cognition, as such, orginat- 
ing, according to him, purely in intellect. The 
materialist and positivist, on the other hand, try 
to explain cognition upon the assumption that all 
is matter, or that we can rely upon sense percep- 
tion, only. Hence, they practically deny intellect, 
reject the perception of a priori truths, and dis- 
card the intellectual process of deduction. 

39. Inconsistency. The whole mistake of the 
partial sceptic lies in his accepting one knowledge 
power and rejecting another; in admitting evi- 
dence in one case and repudiating it in another. 
Why, I ask, should he trust to nature's guidance 
in one instance, and not in another! He puts 
himself in a very awkward predicament. He can 
not advance a step without being inconsistent. 



68 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

Fads perceptible by sense, and a priori principles 
perceptible in their universal character, are, both, 
necessary for argument with men. For, he who 
will not admit perception by sense, must simply 
assume without warrant the existence of men like 
himself, since their existence can be reached by 
real sense-perception only. And he who will not 
admit the purely intellectual perception of purely 
a priori truths in their general and universal 
character Avhich is not perceptible to any sense, 
deprives himself of the very basis of all argu- 
ment, of the general objective value of the princi- 
ple of equality, i. e., that two things which, in a 
respect, are equal to a third, are, in the same re- 
spect, equal to one another. He even deprives 
himself of the chance of holding *to any single 
judgment. For, to him, there is no absolute value 
in the x>riiiciple of contradiction, taken generally, 
i. e.y tliRt the same thing cannot both be and not 
be ai the same time. Hence, he must always be 
prepared, at the outset of his argument, to affirm 
and deny the same thing at the same time. In 
this way, then, is materialism reducible to the 
most hopeless scepticism. The great argument 
agaiiist the sceptic consists, then, radically, in 
forcing upon him his inconsistency in admitting 
one evidence and rejecting another; his incon- 
sistency' in trusting one cognitive faculty and 
doubting the fidelity of another; and his double 
inconsistency, when he begins to reason, of as- 
s'mnirig, in his argument, a cognitive power and 



SCEPTICISM. 69 

an evidence which he has rejected at the start. 
For, as we have seen, every attempt at argument 
amongst men demands and assumes the objective 
value of both sense-perception and intellectual 
perception ; perception of the individual fact of an- 
other man's material body by means of sense, and 
perception of general, universal truths by intel- 
lect. 

40. A Practical Consideration. No valid argu- 
ment can be brought forward to discredit the ob- 
jective value of either sense perception or intel- 
lectual perception. Every argument advanced by 
the whole range of theoretic sceptics, assumes as 
a certainty the very thing which it wishes to prove 
uncertain or unknowable. When we take up a 
book which proposes to manifest to us that we 
can have no certified conviction of the outer world 
such as we accept it, what do we find! We find 
the writer assuming not only the existence of his 
own intelligence, and of his own body with its 
various organs, but also the existence of his pen 
and paper, and of a power of vision to guide him 
in faithfully transcribing the thought of his intel- 
lect. We find him assuming iny existence and 
your existence, my intelligence and 3^our intelli- 
gence, my organs of vision and your organs of 
vision, and the capacity of these organs to trans- 
mit, faithfully, the words upon the paper. We 
find him assuming the reality of the printing 
press, and we discover him reading the proofs 



70 THE TllUTH OF THOUGHT. 

very carefully so as to have the bound volume 
objectively correct. And when that book comes 
to him from the publisher, he will turn over its 
leaves with complacency at the thought of having 
proved to us that we have no right to affirm it 
to be what he himself so clearly holds it to be. 
Now, if this is philosophy, the life of the phi- 
losopher is a very idle sort of a dream. Besides, 
if you eliminate the conviction that any objective 
verity is what it presents itsel:^ with its evidence 
to be, you, at that moment, make practical life 
an impossibility. But the philosophy that makes 
human life an impossibility is not the philosophy 
for man. Howsoever it might suit certain ficti- 
tious existences that we know nothing of, we shall 
not undertake to inquire ; but it does not suit the 
real human existence, with which, after all, it 
purports to be occupied. Carried out, it makes 
that life an impossibility: therefore it is a false 
philosophy. 

In accounting for cognition, it is no more lawful 
to deny or ignore a knowledge power that evi- 
dences itself than it would be to introduce arbi- 
trarily and without any evidence some new kind 
of a power and to insist upon all men admitting 
that they possessed such a power whilst each 
man's consciousness testifies to him that he does 
not possess it. The one position is as unreason- 
able as the other. Yet our theoretical sceptics in- 
sist upon the one, whilst they would blush at the 
other. 



J 



SCEPTICISM. ■ 71 

When a great problem presents itself — like that 
of the twofold character of knowledge, the knowl- 
edge of self and not-self — it is far more manly 
to face the whole problem and to acknowledge 
the limitations of our analysis, than to deny the 
intricacies of the solution, take half of the prob- 
lem as already solved and on the assumption build 
up an arbitrary ^^ system'' which all men must 
then call philosophy or be regarded as lacking in- 
telligence. Yet this is the method pursued by 
every form of theoretic scepticism, call it ideal- 
ism, phenomenalism, materialism or agnosticism. 
The theoretic sceptic, nevertheless, in practical 
life, acts up to his conviction of the objective 
truth of both facts and principles. He goes to 
dinner and to bed. He pays and collects his bills. 
Though he lectures in the university and writes 
books to prove to you and me that we must not 
take things as they seem to be, he himself does, 
all the time, take them to be as they seem to him 
to be ; and he would not for a moment dare to do 
otherwise. So do Berkeley, Hume, Kant, J. S. 
Mill, H. Spencer, whilst writing books (which are 
very hard reading) to show that any one else who 
should presume to do likewise would be pursuing 
a course for which reason grants no warrant. 

41. An Advantage Gained. The advantage 
which we hope we have gained by the method of 
treatment which we have thus far pursued is not 
an inconsiderable one. We have tried to rid the 



iZ THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

following pages of that constant warfare which 
we should, otherwise, find ourselves obliged to 
keep up with conflicting theories. We are follow- 
ing what may be called, in a sense, the middle 
course, inasmuch as we are not dragged over 
to the extreme of either idealism or sensualism. 
AVe are trying to indicate the entire philosophy of 
the convictions that govern and have ever gov- 
erned the practical life of men, and which are the 
essential condition of thought, of civilization, of 
progress, of human existence. In the pages which 
are to come we should find it very tedious were 
we obliged at every paragraph to make a refer- 
ence to what had been said by one or another of 
the theorists mentioned in Chapter III, and to in- 
dulge in a refutation. To avoid this inconvenience 
we have massed the opposition into one chapter: 
In the discord we have found that all the theories 
are built upon the same foundation, evidence. But 
tlie theorists did not take into their field of view 
the whole foundation, the whole evidence. Each, 
arbitrarily limiting himself to one particular evi- 
dence, to half the foundation (ignoring the other 
half), and having built thereupon his structure, 
has no way left him to complete the edifice of 
knowledge but by building on top of what he al- 
ready has — a castle in the air. This superstruc- 
ture has no stability. Thus, for instance, the 
idealist affirming self upon the evidence of self, 
tries, out of this affirmation and without evidence, 
to affirm not-self and the outer world in general, 



SCEPTICISM. 73 

or declares,' at least, that there is no other basis 
upon which to establish the conviction of not-self, 
if, indeed, we will insist upon having snch a con- 
viction, lie ignores the other evidences, the other 
parts of the foundation. He has bnilt a castle in 
the air. To affirm it to be real is to put npon the 
partial evidence the whole weight of the entire 
objective truth, and, in this case, the partial evi- 
dence, itself, must crumble, for it is not destined 
to support the mass ; and there is left the chaos of 
nescience. 

We opened upon a common ground, conscious- 
ness, for the reason that when dealing with one 
or another of the multifarious vagaries of philo- 
sophic thought upon the question with which we 
are occupied, we shall always find it more easy 
to lead an inquirer forward from a common 
ground than to seek him in every by-way of his 
wanderings and guide him back constantly to the 
starting point : besides, when we proffer safe con- 
duct to the meeting of the ways, a wanderer may 
be ill disposed to submit to our guidance. 

42. The Work Before Us. We could not go on 
with the rest of our work by the pure analysis of 
inquiry, for we should never come to an end. 
Recognizing, now, the entire scope of evidence as 
presenting to us that which is knowable, we are 
prepared to see what is held regarding the truth 
of thought by the human race, taught from the 
beginning in the great University of nature. 



CHAPTER VII. THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT, 
OR LOGICAL TRUTH. 

Truth: Onfologival, Logicat, Moral — Truth, a Certain 
Correspondence or Conformity — Logical Truth — Log- 
ical Falsity — Logical Truth; in what Mental Act is 
it Found^Tlie Radical Reason. 

43. Truth: Ontological, Logical, Moral. If we 

consider the various uses of the words, true, truth, 
we shall find that there are three orders of truth. 
We say of a man that he is a true orator, mean- 
ing that he contains within himself, that he pos- 
sesses the requisites of an orator; that he corre- 
sponds to the ideal which we figure to ourselves 
as the pattern to which the real must conform to 
be truly an orator. This correspondence of real 
with the ideal is called ontological truth. It is 
the truth of the thing, the truth of heing {ovTo^i). 
Whatever is, has ontological truth; for, it con- 
tains all that is required to make it what it is. 

Again, we may say of our orator, that his 
thoughts are true, meaning that his notions, judg- 
ments, conclusions, correspond to certain things, 
principles, which are not his thoughts. This sec- 
ond correspondence, namely of thought with thing 
(meaning by thing, whatever can be thought of) 

74 



I 



LOGICAL TRUTH. 75 

is called logical truth, truth of thought, of the 
Aoyos. Finally, we will say that the orator's 
words are true, meaning, in general, that they 
correspond Avith his thoughts — presuming, of 
course, that the thoughts correspond with things. 
This correspondence of words with thought is 
called moral truth. It is called moral truth to 
indicate the free will that motives the correspon- 
dence of the words with the thought ; and the 
opposite of moral truth, that is, falsehood, is said 
to exist then only when by free will the words are 
made to disagree with the thought. The thought 
may, indeed, disagree with thing, there may be 
logical error; but provided the words are not 
wilfully made to disagree with the thought, there 
is still moral truth. The falsehood in such case 
is purely material, that is, there is simply matter 
for falsehood. But there is no formal falsehood, 
because there is absent the form or characteristic 
of falsehood, that is, the wilful deviation from the 
correspondence which words should naturally 
have with things through thought. 

44. Truth, a Certain Correspondence or Con- 
formity. From this we discover that, in the uni- 
versal acceptation of terms, truth is understood 
to be a certain correspondence or conformity. And 
we would remark, in passing, that in matters phil- 
osophical a positive value is to be attached to the 
constant, universal acceptance of the meaning of 
words — words being the natural medium for the 



76 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

communication of thought. Hence, though it is 
easy to err when one too broadly assumes the 
conditions of the oral word as the measure of 
the conditions of the mental word; nevertheless, 
when due discretion is used, we can, from a uni- 
form, constant, universal usage in speech, be 
sometimes guided to the discovery of an impor- 
tant general principle regarding truth. 

45. Logical Truth. This Treatise has to do 
with logical truth, exclusively. Logical truth is 
the conformity of thought with thing. By thing 
we mean anything whatsoever ; any fact, event or 
abstract principle; any thought, even, that is) 
made the object of another thought. In what, 
precisely, the conformity consists, we are not 
called upon to declare further than that the 
thought answers, as thought can, to the thing 
thought of. Some new writers have been too 
ready to reject this term, conformity, as expres- 
sive of logical truth, though our definition is 
founded upon and drawn from the uniform con- 
sent of the human race and the practical needs of 
humanity. The reason why the definition is op- 
posed by these writers is this: to be able, say 
they, to discover such conformity and thus to be 
able to know that we have logical truth, it would 
be necessary to be able to stand of¥, as it were, 
so as to survey thought and thing and thus judge 
whether there existed a likeness between them. 
But the objection is not reasonable. Thought has 



LOGICAL TRUTH. 77 

its own natural representative-value, as words 
have their arbitrary representative-value. Whilst 
reading the interesting page or listening to the 
vivid discourse, you are carried to the thing rep- 
resented without adverting to the arbitrary sign, 
the written or spoken language. And why so? 
Because of the conformity between the language 
and the thing written or spoken of. Look at your 
page and, then, at the blooming valley which it 
describes. They present no points of similarity 
to the eye. You will find between them no such 
conformity as that which exists between portrait 
and sitter. Yet the printed page conforms to the 
landscape. Now, if there can be a conformity be- 
tween language and thing, how much more perfect 
will be the conformity of thought for which speech 
is but a poor delegate! And those very writers 
who object to our definition will still appeal for 
the truth of their own words to the conformity 
which they hold those words to have with thought 
and thing. To admit a conformity, then, it is not 
necessary to set the thought down beside the thing 
and compare the two. In listening to the w^ords 
of another, without reverting to those words we 
catch the thought of another : and without revert- 
ing to that thought we form our own thought ; and 
without reverting to our own thought we perceive 
thing, we know thing. We have here a series of 
conformities, going round like the seamless links 
of a circular chain from object to the speaker's 
thought, from his thought to his words, from his 



78 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

words to my thought, from my thought back to 
object. 

Thought is an exercise of mental activity : it is, 
at the same time, representative; and in it and 
by it we perceive the object of the thought, with- 
out perceiving the thought itself. Now, when 
the thought is such that in it and by it we really 
perceive what we believe we do perceive, the 
thought is said to be true, and we have logical 
truth. It is not necessary for logical truth that 
the thought embrace the entire object: to what 
extent there is conformity, to that extent is there 
logical truth. 

46. Logical Falsity. Any positive disagree- 
ment betw^een thought and thing is logical falsity. 
A mere absence of agreement or a total absence 
of all thought about the object is not falsity or 
error. Neither is the mere not knowing more 
about the object — the mere limitation of the scope 
of our knowledge — error. Our thoughts about a 
thing may be true and only true, and, yet, fall 
short of the whole truth. I may not know that 
the square of the hypothenuse of a right triangle 
is equal to the sum of the squares of the other 
sides. This is a mere negative or privative condi- 
tion of my knowledge, and does not constitute log- 
ical falsity. But if I believe that the square of 
any side in any triangle is equal to the sum of 
the squares of the other two sides, there is here 



LOGICAL TRUTH. 79 

a positive thought disagreeing with the objective 
or ontological truth : there is logical falsity, error. 

47. Logical Truth: in what Mental Act is it 

Found? In the " Laws of Thought ' ' we described, 
briefly, three mental cognitive acts or perform- 
ances : the simple apprehension, the judgment, 
and the argumentation or reasoning. The de- 
scription there given is amply sufficient for the 
purposes of this work, since we are not occupying 
ourselves with the essential distinction between 
the ]iOVv^ers of sense-cognition and the power of 
purely intellectual cognition, though we have to 
insist, even here (and more fully a little later), 
upon their being individually distinct. The com- 
plete discussion of their essential distinction be- 
longs to psychology. 

The simple apprehension was described as the 
mental act considered in so far only as it contains 
what corresponds to an oral term, as man, zebra, 
tree, blue, red, redness, virtue, hope— without any 
affirmation or negation connected therewith. 

The judgment was described as the mental act 
whose oral expression is a proposition containing 
an affirmation or a negation, as, man is intelligent, 
hope is a virtue. 

Argumentation or reasoning was described as 
the mental act which compares objectively the 
content of two judgments, so as to formulate ex- 
plicitly a third judgment, whose content was im- 
plicitly perceived in the act of comparing, — the 



80 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT.' 

oral expression of the act of comparing being the 
syllogism. Thus : 

All virtues are desirable; 
Temperance is a virtue; 
Therefore, Temperance is desirable. 

In each of these, apprehension, judgment, reas- 
oning, we have a mental act which is, in its own 
way, representative, conformable to thing. But 
which of them is comformable in such a manner that 
it may be said to contain logical truth — consider- 
ing the universally accepted meaning of words? 
We insist upon the universally accepted meaning 
of words. Man has always tried to use words 
in a definite way to express his thought; and we 
are considering the humanity that is and has been 
and will be ; not an imaginary and impossible hu- 
manity. And language, when in universal accord, 
is, even though of a different order, a very good 
auxiliary when we have to pass judgment upon 
thought. In which act, then, is the logical truth? 
It is not easy for us to tell whether we might so 
manage the mental act as to hold the apprehen- 
sion, pure and simple, without formulating a judg- 
ment. But whether we might be able to do so 
or not, no one mil venture to say that there is a 
complete truth contained in the apprehension. If 
you utter merely a term that stands for an appre- 
hension, or even a list of terms, as temperance, 
desirable, virtue, no person will credit you with a 
truth or charge you with an error. 



d 



LOGICAL TRUTH. 81 

But take a proposition, which is the oral ex- 
pression of the judgment. Take an analytic prop- 
osition, such as parallel lines produced will never 
meet; or a synthetic proposition, such as the sky 
is dark. According to the universal usage of 
words either proposition may be regarded as con- 
taining a complete truth; the analytic proposi- 
tion, at all times ; the synthetic, whenever the sky 
happens to be dark. Anyone will always be ready 
to declare that a proposition is necessarily either 
true or false; whilst a simple apprehension or a 
term will never be called true or false. Now the 
proposition is nothing more than the oral expres- 
sion of the mental act of judgment. Hence the 
mental act of judgment, parallellines produced will 
never meet, will always be regarded as mentally 
true, that is, logically true ; and the mental act of 
judgment, the sky is dark, the synthetic judgment, 
will always be regarded as necessarily either true 
or false logically. Hence we say that logical 
truth is found complete in the judgment. 

48. The Radical Reason. The radical reason 
why we say that logical truth is found complete 
in the judgment and not in the apprehension, is 
because a complete conformity is found in the 
judgment and not in the apprehension. That 
which is represented by the simple apprehension 
or the term is never found out of the mind, iso- 
lated and by itself, as it stands in the solitary ap- 
prehension and term, but it is found necessarily 



82 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

connected with something else which is also ex- 
pressible by another apprehension and by another 
term. For example, that which we call red, objec- 
tively, and whicii is an object of apprehension 
and can be expressed by the term red, does not 
exist objectively by itself, but naturally conjoined 
with a something which is red. The objective or 
ontological truth is not merely red, nor merely 
something, but the two conjoined, something red. 
And the apprehension of these two conjoined as 
conjoined, is the work of the mental act which 
is expressed orally by the proposition, that is red. 
This act is the judgment. 

We do not say, we repeat it, that there is no 
element of logical truth in the simple apprehen- 
sion, since the simple apprehension is, after all, 
an element of the judgment ; but we do not know 
that we ever make a direct perception and thus 
form an individual, solitary, isolated notion. The 
fact is, that, as far as our observation can go, we 
find ourselves making what I might call a duplex 
or triplex or quadruplex apprehension. A^Hiatever 
formality (Laws of Thought, 20), we apprehend 
directly, we spontaneously attach to it objectively j 
some other formality which constitutes material 
for another simple apprehension. We apprehend 
it at least as actual or possible or past or present™ 
or future, as a something or that something, or 
even as impossible. There is a dispute among 
philosophers as -to whether over and above the 
perception of the objective agreement or disagree- 



I 



LOGICAL TRUTH. 83 

meiit of two concepts, the complete judgment re- 
quires a new act, which consists in the formal 
affirmation or denial; or whether the perception 
of agreement or disagreement does not in itself 
constitute judgment. The reason for holding that 
this perception constitutes what we call judgment 
is, that there is here a complete conformity : there 
is knowledge. When we see a rose which is red, 
we take in directly the objective combination of 
rose and red; we have knowledge ; we affirm men- 
tally. A new act of mind introducing the con- 
ventional is or is not of human speech seems to 
be superfluous. We call the concept a mental 
liwrd and we call the judgment a mental affirma- 
tion. But this terminology is adapted from names 
applied to spoken language. Now, when we have 
a concept we do not speak a mental word after 
the act of mental apprehension. So, also, when 
we make a judgment it is not necessary to per- 
form a new act of affirmation after we have ap- 
prehended the objective agreement. 

Finally, we may remark that as logical truth 
can exist complete in the judgment, so there can 
be as- many complete logical truths in an argu- 
mentation as there are simple judgments con- 
tained therein. 

Our remarks upon error or logical falsity we 
reserve for a later chapter. 



CHx\PTEK VIII. CERTITUDE. 

Three states of Mind: Ignorance^ Doubt, Certitude — 
Object of Certitude — Thi^ee Orders of Ontological 
Truth: Metaphysical, Physical, Moral — Metaphys- 
ical, Physical and Moral Certitude — Objective Certi- 
tude — Certitude: Immediate and Mediate; Direct 
and Reflex; Philosophical — Probability. 

49. Three States of the Mind: Ignorance, 
Doubt, Certitude. We have determined upon what 
we mean by logical truth. We have now to con- 
sider certain states in which the mind can be in 
regard to the affirmation of objective agreement 
of concepts. There are three such states: ignor- 
ance, donbt, certitnde. 

Take two contradictory propositions, ^^The 
number of the stars is odd," "The number of the 
stars is even." One or the other of them must 
be true ; but we have no evidence, positive or neg- 
ative, for or against either. This leaves us in 
absolute ignorance with regard to each. Hence 
when, in contemplating a given proposition, the 
mind finds no reason whatever to affirm either it 
or its contradictory, the state of the mind with 
regard to such proposition, such judgment rep- 
resented bv the proposition, and hence with re- 

84 



CEKTITUDE. 85 

gard to the possible objective or ontological truth 
corresponding, is said to be ignorance. 

When, however, the mind sees positive reasons 
for affirming each of two contradictories, that 
is, for affirming and denying the same thing, but 
dares not adhere to either because it cannot reject 
the evidence on the other side, it is held in sus- 
pense between the two, and is said to be in a state 
of doubt. When, in this state of suspense, the 
mind does, for grave reasons, incline more to one 
side than to another, yet fearing all the while that 
the truth may be on the other side, it is said to 
hold an opinion. Thus, two minds looking at the 
same proposition with different degrees of in- 
formation may, as we so often see they do, hold 
different opinions upon the same subject. And 
the same mind, holding one opinion to-day, may, 
for new reasons perceived, hold the contradictory 
opinion to-morrow. 

When a proposition is seen to be true, to rep- 
resent an evident ontological truth, and the con- 
tradictory to be evidently false, the mind is es- 
tablished in a state of certitude with regard to the 
evident truth. Certitude is, therefore, a firm as- 
sent of the mind to one of two contradictories, 
without any fear of error. 

It may, indeed, happen that two persons may 
claim to have certitude: the one, of a certain 
proposition ; the other, of the contradictory. This 
only indicates that one of the persons is judging 
on insufficient motives : for one of the contra- 



86 THE THUTH OF THOUGHT. 

dictories must be false. Hence the person holding 
it must be judging without sufficient considera- 
tion. 

50. Object of Certitude. It is to be remarked 
that in rational philosophy we speak of natural 
certitude only, and not of certitude by divine 
faith founded on divine testimony. Natural cer- 
titude embraces in its adequate object whatever 
may be known by the natural powers of mind — 
whether it be concrete fact or general principle. 
This object, then, is not to be understood as com- 
prising the entire ontological truth, but only that 
]30?'tion which can be naturally known by the hu- 
man mind. It thus excludes every truth the 
knowledge of which is absolutely beyond the 
natural reach of the human mind. Not that any 
human effort of any mind or of all the human 
family Avill ever reach more than a very small 
fraction of the truths contained in the con-natural 
adequate object of human certitude; the object 
embraces, nevertheless, all that lies absolutely 
within the natural reach of human intelligence. 

51. Three Orders of Ontological Truth: Meta- 
physical, Physical, Moral. The con-natural ade- 
quate object of human certitude is divisible into 
two classes of ontological truths. In one class we 
have all general truths: these are expressed by 
universal propositions. In the other class we 
have all truths not general, — facts or possibilities 



CERTITUDE. 87 

past, present or future: these are expressed by 
singular or particular, propositions. The general 
truths are again divisible into two classes: the 
absolute and the hypothetical, or conditional. The 
absolute are of the metaphysical order. The hy- 
pothetical are further divisible into those of the 
physical order and those of the moral order. 

Special attention is called to the characteristics 
of the general truths. When we affirm any truth, 
hold to it, that which we affirm and hold to is the 
objective connection between the subject and the 
predicate. Hence, it is precisely this connection 
that is absolute or hypothetical. When we affirm 
this general truth, '^The same thing cannot both 
be and not be at the same time," we declare a 
truth in which the connection between subject and 
predicate is absolutely necessary: it is free [ahso- 
luta) of all condition, and must hold permanently 
and invariably in time and eternity. When we 
say, ''The earth turns on its axis regularly, bring- 
ing da}^ and night," we again have a certain 
permanent and necessary connection between sub- 
ject and predicate. But the connection is not 
absolutely necessary. It is hypothetical. It is 
conditioned by the existence and continuance of 
the present order of the material universe. Still 
further, if we say, ' ' Man commonly speaks truth- 
fully," we have a certain permanent and neces- 
sary objective connection between subject and 
predicate. But it is not absolutely necessary. It 
is hypothetical. It is conditioned by the existence 



88 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

of man, and by his continuance in the common 
ways {mores) of men. 

The first of these truths is absolute and of the 
metaphysical order. The second is hypothetical 
and of the physical order. The third is hypo- 
thetical and of the moral order. 

In a truth of the metaphysical order the con- 
nection between subject and predicate arises from 
the very essence of the things in question, from 
the nature of the content of subject and predicate ; 
so that the opposite is objectively an absolute im- 
possibility and its affirmation is necessarily un- 
true. Such truth is, therefore, called metaphysi- 
cal, that is, beyond all dependence upon the ex- 
istence or conditions of the physical universe. It 
is absolute or unconditional, free (absoluta) of all 
condition or limitation. Its application to par- 
ticular cases is universal and without possible 
exception, because the connection arises from the 
very nature of things. The idea of the subject 
involves the idea of the predicate; and the idea 
of the predicate can be evolved from the idea of 
the subject. The connection is necessary by an 
absolute necessity. It is metaphysically neces- 
sary. It is metaphysical, outside the conditions 
of the ph^^sical order. Of this character are all 
arithmetical and geometrical truths, as, ^Hwo and 
two make four,'' ^^ parallel lines cannot meet," 
'Hhe three angles of a triangle are together equal 
to two right angles''; also all fundamental laws 
of thought, as, 'Hwo things which in a certain re- 



CERTITUDE. 



89 



spect are equal to a third thing are in the same 
respect equal to one another ;'' ^'the same thing 
cannot both be and not be at the same time ; " also 
all essential definitions, complete or incomplete, 
since the predicate is here only a fuller declara- 
tion of the subject, as, ^^man is a rational ani- 
mal, " "all animals have life. ' ' 

In a general truth of the physical order the 
connection between subject and predicate is not 
seen to arise from the very essence of things, 
from the nature of contents evidently inevitably 
linked together. The connection is held, however, 
as being universal objectively; but it is so held 
simply by reason of an observed uniformity and 
constancy of fact or effect. From this we con- 
clude by induction to the uniform, constant action 
of a given agent in given circumstances, which we 
enunciate as a physical law of nature. These 
laws are the general truths of the physical order. 
They are not absolute. They are hypothetical, 
conditional. The condition is the existence and 
perseverance of the present physical order of the 
material universe. The connection between sub- 
ject and predicate is said to be physical. There 
is nothing in the evidence to indicate, and hence 
we do not hold, that the opposite is an absolute 
impossibility. When we say that light travels at 
the rate of more than ten million miles a minute, 
we do not mean to imply that the Maker of the 
universe could not make light to travel regularly 
with less or greater speed. Nevertheless we have 



90 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

certitude regarding the truth of these physical 
laws : the laws of physics, chemistry, mechanics, 
of light, heat, motion, electricity, gravitation, co- 
hesion, affinity, etc. Our daily life proceeds with- 
out hesitation and with security in the conviction 
that they are not going to fail us. We have evi- 
dence enough to see that the Maker of the uni- 
verse has put into matter certain constant forces 
to enable us to advance with certitude in the af- 
fairs of life and not be in a continuous state of 
bewilderment as never knowing what is to come 
next. 

Finally, there are the general truths of the 
moral order. They are so named because they 
relate to the common ways (mores) of men. The 
connection between subject and predicate is not 
metaphysical It is not even fixed by the will of 
the Creator, as in the physical laws. Still it is 
seen to follow with a certain constancy and uni- 
formity in the free conduct of our f ellowmen, with 
whom and in dependence upon whom we have to 
go through life. From our own instinct, from 
the study of our own actions and motives and the 
actions and motives of those whom we have 
known, from a universal and unhesitating agree- 
ment concerning normal conduct, upon the pre- 
sumption of which the social life of the human 
race has been and is now founded and without 
which there could be no human society, we come 
to recognize this other class of general truths. 



CERTITUDE. 91 

AVe take it as universally true, for instance, 
that men will give some consideration to their 
temporal interests, that parents will have some 
regard for their own families, that the citizens at 
large desire laAV and order, that in certain circum- 
stances men will speak the truth, etc. Yet, the 
connection between subject and predicate is not 
absolute. An exception is possible. This ex- 
ception is, moreover, dependent upon the free will 
of man. These truths of the moral order, as uni- 
versal, are therefore hypothetical. The hypothe- 
sis, the condition postulated, is the constancy of 
the action of the human will under given motives. 
The exceptions, however, are comparatively so 
rare in the sum of deliberate human acts that they 
are practically negligible, and the acceptance of 
these truths as practically universal is a necessity 
of human existence. 

What is to be said concerning the objective con- 
nection between subject and predicate in the other 
class of truths, the individual facts 1 A fact whilst 
it is a fact cannot be otherwise. The same thing 
cannot both be and not be at the same time. Hence 
tlie fact, though it might never have taken place, 
has, when once accomplished, the firmness of a 
truth of the metaphysical order. For the rest it 
may be either an individual case under a general 
truth of any of the three orders ; or it may be a 
thing in which the connection between subject and 
predicate can be broken and re-established, as, 
**I write — I do not write — I write;" or it may be 



92 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

a truth which could not be affirmed before and 
which can never be affirmed again, as, ^^It is now 
midnight between 1915 and 1916.'^ 

52. Metaphysical, Thysical, Moral Certitude. 

These terms — metaphysical, physical, moral — are 
used primarily to indicate degrees of necessity 
existing objectively in the connection between 
subject and predicate in the ontological truth. 
The same terms, however, are applied to certitude. 
It is denominated metaphysical, physical, moral, 
according to the order of ontological truth ad- 
hered to. Certitude is thus qualified by what is 
technically called an extrinsic denomination. The 
terms indicate, each a degree of necessity. Certi- 
tude is an attitude or state of mind following the 
apprehension of that necessity, and it is denomi- 
nated from a characteristic of the truth appre- 
hended. 

53. Objective Certitude. Just as we qualify the 
state of the mind knowing, by terms belonging to 
the object known; so, also, do we sometimes find 
the term, certitude, which expresses the state of 
mind knowing, applied to the object known. The 
truth or object known is then called objective 
certitude, to distinguish it from the state of mind 
knowing, which by way of distinction is called sub- 
jective certitude. We shall find it more conveni- 
ent to limit the name, certitude, to its original 
signification of the state of mind. We shall thus 



CERTITUDE. 



93 



avoid a possible ambiguity in philosophical termi- 
nology. We have, besides, a well understood term 
to express what is meant by objective certitude, 
the word certainty. With the word certitude to 
express the state of the mind knowing, and cer- 
tainty to express the truth known, much confu- 
sion may be avoided. A certainty will thus al- 
ways signify a truth known, and, certainty, in 
the abstract, will signify ascertained truth in 
general. And though we do find the word, cer- 
tainty, employed in common speech to signify 
the subjective state of certitude, as in the expres- 
sions *^to have, to obtain, to arrive at certainty,'' 
this need not affect the limitation which we give 
to the word in philosophical terminology. It may 
be added that the word ^^ certain," employed as 
a predicate, has in common language obtained use 
in the subjective and objective sense as well as 
in the indefinite (impersonal) sense. We say ^^I 
am certain," ^Hhat is certain," ^4t is certain that 



54. Certitude: Immediate and Mediate; Direct 
and Reflex; Philosophical. Certitude is called im- 
mediate when we assent to a truth Avhich is per- 
ceived as presented to us in itself and not through 
a medium. It is called mediate when the assent 
is given to a truth which has been perceived 
through a medium, through a demonstration, for 
instance, or the testimony of a recognized au- 
thor it v. 



94 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

Certitude, whether immediate or mediate, when 
first arising, is called direct certitude, to distin- 
guish it from what is termed reflex certitude, 
which is the state of the mind following the satis- 
factory investigation or "proof" of the motives 
upon which the direct certitude was based. 

This investigation may, of course, be made in 
a more or less elaborate manner; and it is as a 
rule made in a degree by all men, upon the ap- 
prehension of truths that are new to them. We 
say in common language that we look or think 
or listen tivice to be certain. AVhen this investiga- 
tion is carried into details so as to consider the 
nature of the truth presented, the kind of neces- 
sity existing in the connection between the predi- 
cate and the subject, the precise perceptive con- 
ditions of the faculty through which the truth is 
first ushered into the domain of knowledge, and 
also of the other faculties by which it is elevated 
into the spiritual regions of thought, and finally 
the point wiiere investigation must cease if we 
will not quench all light of knowledge in the mists 
of absolute scepticism — then we arrive at what 
is dignified by the name of philosophical certitud-e. 

55. Probability. We have spoken of doubt as 
a hesitation of the mind between two contradic- 
tories; and of opinion, as a leaning of the mind 
to one of the contradictories for reasons which 
seem more cogent, but which do not, nevertheless, 
refute the aro:uments for the other contradictorv. 



CERTITUDE. 95 

Probability is the capacity for proof or demoii- 
stration, the plea for acceptance in a doubtful 
case. The probability of a proposition is the 
weight or value of the sum of argument that can 
be brought forward in an endeavor to establish 
the proposition. Of course, if the proposition 
can be logically established and its contradictory 
can- be logically shown to be false, we then have 
a true proposition representing a certified onto- 
logical or objective truth. But if we cannot es- 
tablish the falsity of the contradictory, then the 
proposition remains only probable; and' its prob- 
ability will vary with the weight or argument that 
can be advanced for it. Thus we can hold only 
an opinion as to its representing an ontological 
truth. Hence, according to the weight of argu- 
ment, we will say that a proposition is hardly 
probable, simply probable, very probable, ex- 
tremely probable. 

Probability, strictly taken, refers to that which 
is to be proved. But, by a transfer of terms, we 
apply the word, probable, to the opinion itself — 
that is, to the state of mind inclining, for reason, 
to a probable proposition. We speak of a prob- 
able opinion, a very probable opinion, etc. 

Moreover, as the proposition stands for the 
judgment, and the judgment and proposition 
stand for the ontological order, we also employ 
the terms, probable and probability, when speak- 
ing of that which the probable proposition is in- 
tended to represent. We speak of a probable 



96 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

cause, a probable effect, a probability — meaning 
that there are for said cause, effect, etc., argu- 
ments weighty enough to justify one in forming 
an opinion. 



CHAPTER IX. MEANS WE POSSESS FOR 
ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE — PERCEP- 
TIVE OR KNOWING POWERS— THE 
EXTERNAL SENSES. 

A Difficulty — Unity of the Human Person — The Outer 
Senses — The Formal Objects of the Outer Senses — 
Taste — Smell — Hearing — Sight — Touch. 

56. A Difficulty. It is necessary for us to say 
something, in this treatise, about the means with 
which nature has provided us for arriving at 
knowledge. But in determining upon what to 
say, we are forced to put the balance of our dis- 
crimination to the most exquisite test. It is of the 
very last importance that we do not introduce 
into our treatise what does not belong to it. Yet, 
as we face the present subject, we find ourselves 
upon the borders of sciences that require, each, a 
distinct and separate treatment. When we touch 
upon the knowledge of the abstract, the percep- 
tion of universal truths, and the power of com- 
paring judgments for the sake of drawing con- 
clusions, we are apt to run into rational psychol- 
ogy and to institute inquiries into the nature of 
the principle that can know the immaterial, as 

97 



98 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

distinct f loiii, or discriminated, in some way, from 
the principle that can know only the individual, 
the concrete, the material. And, when we touch 
upon sense-perception, we run the risk of extend- 
ing our remarks into mutilated treatises upon 
anatomy, physiology, optics, acoustics, etc. In 
beginning this book we made up our mind that 
it should not be written from what w^e may call 
the point of view^ of the specialist — from any out- 
side technical standpoint. We stand upon the 
common ground of humanity. However, in steer- 
ing clear of the Scylla of exuberance we are in 
danger of striking the Charybdis of barrenness. 
We must, therefore, try, at least, to be careful; 
and it may be useful for us to bear in mind what 
is contained in the following paragraph. 

57. Unity of the Human Person. Let it be un- 
derstood, once for all, that in this treatise we are 
not called upon to prove the nature of the soul 
or the nature of the body. But we are called upon 
to hold what consciousness presents to us, namely, 
the unity of the totality of man. The unit. Ego, 1, 
is the subject of each individual predication and 
of the sum total of all the predications made by 
consciousness. If there is thinking, it is / that 
think, not the mind ; but I think by the use of the 
power or faculty of thinking which belongs to me, 
and which we call mind, intellect, reason. When 
there is judgment, I judge. When there is hear- 
ing, I hear. The hearing belongs to me, not to 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 



99 



tlie ear. The ear is nothing in the perceptive 
order except in so far as it belongs to the vital 
me. So, also, it is not the eye that sees, but I 
see. And so it is Avith every predication of every 
exercise of a capacity for action belonging to the 
human person. T think, I will, I see, I walk, I 
hope, I sleep, I fall, etc. 

58. The Outer Senses. We have previously said 
enough about consciousness, the power we possess 
of knowing self and the modifications of self. The 
study of self, by this power of consciousness, 
shows us that we are put into communication, per- 
ceptive communication, with the outer world of 
matter by means of five distinct organs or sets of 
organs which form parts of the body belonging to 
self. These organs are eyes, ears, nostrils, tongue- 
and-palate, entire-body-surface. These organs, 
Avhen vivified by that ever identical unit, the prin- 
ciple of life that is within us, are constituted 
senses ; and in them and through them the vital 
principle becomes first perceptive of the outer 
world of matter. The five senses or perceptive 
powers, thus constituted, are called, respectively, 
sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. This is a very 
old division of the outer senses ; as old, indeed, as 
man. We find the exercise of the five senses re- 
corded in the first chapters of Genesis; and we 
find no new outer sense discovered up to the pres- 
ent time. It is true the sense of touch has been 
subdivided as to the qualities perceived, temper- 



100 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

atiire, movement, resistance. The power of per- 
ceiving resistance and movement is styled muscu- 
lar sense, and the sense of touch proper is limited 
to the perception of mere contact. Howsoever the 
case may be, the distinction is sufficiently vague 
even to physiologists, and we are justified, for 
our present purposes, in including all the subdi- 
visions under the single name of touch. The 
power of exercising sense-perception is called, in 
general, sensibility or simply sense. 

59. The Formal Objects of the Outer Senses. 
We may very well marvel when we come to con- 
sider how the vast stores of knowledge accumu- 
lated in the minds and the libraries of men have 
been built up, manufactured, as it were, to use a 
material expression, out of what is provided by 
the exercise of sense-perception. And the wonder 
only grows when we find upon investigation how 
very, very limited is the object upon which each 
sense is privileged to exercise itself. The formal 
object of any sense, as of any perceptive power, 
is that form, formality, determination, peculiar- 
ity, something, which the sense perceives immedi- 
ately and directly, without which it could not ex- 
ercise its percejjtive power, and which, as resid- 
ing in concrete matter here and there (material 
object), is the reason why the sense is said to per- 
ceive the object in which that form or formality 
resides. It is out of the perception of the formal 
objects of the faculties that we construct, so to 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 101 

say, the stores of knowledge which we lay by. We 
shall here consider briefly the formal objects of 
the several external senses. 

60. Taste. Though we know sufficiently well, 
for the practical purposes of life, what we mean 
when we say that an object has a taste, yet, when 
we come to speak philosophically, we find it hard 
to define accurately what we mean by the formal 
object of the sense of taste. We certainly do not 
taste light or sound or extension. As far as we 
know, the formal object of taste is a certain vari- 
able quality which some bodies possess, when in 
solution, of affecting the tongue and palate in 
such a way (chemically, perhaps) as to put the 
tongue and palate in that condition in which they 
are when we say we taste. This formal object we 
should be inclined to call sapor, in order to give it 
a distinctive name. It is commonly called taste, 
for we say that things have a bitter taste or a sour 
taste; but thus we are using the same word for 
the sense and the object. We might call it flavor 
or savor; but these too readily suggest the ele- 
ment of agreeableness from which we must ab- 
stract when we wish to express in one word that 
character in matter which can furnish, whether 
as agreeable, disagreeable or indifferent, what is 
essential for the exercise of the sense of taste. 

Taste and smell are closely allied : and, in swal- 
lowing, sensations of smell may be mistaken for 
sensations of taste. The word, taste, is sometimes 



1D2 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

incorrectly used for touch, as when, for instance, 
acid is said to have a burning taste. In the same 
way we speak of a nauseous taste or a nauseous 
smell, whereas nausea is a revolt of the alimen- 
tary canal. 

The knowledge derived through taste is very 
slight. It is, indeed, held very generally that the 
sensation of taste is purely subjective — that is, 
that by the act of taste we do not perceive objec- 
tive reality, do not get at the not-self, but per- 
ceive merely the modification of self. And it is 
said that were it not for the exercise of touch 
or sight upon the object tasted, from which, after 
repeated experiences, we infer the existence of 
something objective whenever there is a sensa- 
tion of taste, we should get from taste no knowl- 
edge whatever of objective realit}'. However the 
case may be, we are not willing to spend our time, 
here, upon mere theory, be it ever so plausible. 
If by the aid of sight and touch we can, through 
inference, assert the objectivity of the formal ob- 
ject of taste, we are ready to let the matter go at 
that. Nevertheless, we may very well ask whether 
there be not here, as in the exercise of every ex- 
ternal faculty whose exercise is intimately con- 
nected with the preservation of human life, some 
perception of the not-self character of the object. 
Take the case of an infant of six months. It will 
try to rid itself of a disagreeable taste remaining 
in its mouth, though it has no perception whatever 
beyond mere taste, and there is nothing in its 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 103 

mouth upon which touch might seem to be to be 
exercised. Shall we say that the infant is draw- 
ing an inference from the experience it has had 
of taste being exercised upon that which touch 
has revealed as not-self, and is thus somehow de- 
ciding that there is now in its mouth an object 
w^hich is of the character of not- self and which 
may be removed to a convenient distance! Or 
has it direct perception of not-self through taste 
alone? I should very much like to know. Could 
we obtain a history of the first developments of 
child knowledge, we should fmd therein the simple 
solution of some problems of psychology Avhich 
have baffled the genius of all philosophers, and 
which still remain an open challenge to the phi- 
losophers of the rest of time. 

One thing we may note. Remarkably meager 
as is the direct knowledge we get from taste, no 
less remarkable is the wide adaptation we make 
of the variations in the formal object of taste in 
order to enrich our vocabulary, when wishing to 
characterize objects (howsoever perceived) that 
influence the emotions. Thus we have now almost 
lost sight of the metaphorical origin of epithets in 
such expressions as, a sour look, a bitter retort, a 
SAveet child, an insipid story, etc. 

61. Smell. The organ of the sense of smell is 
the membranous lining of the nostrils. 

The formal object of smell is that variable qual- 
ity in bodies, which we designate bv the common 



104 THE TEUTH OF THOUGHT. 

term, odor. In order that the sense of smell may 
be exercised upon a body, particles of the body 
possessing the quality we call odor must come in 
contact with the organ. The minuteness of the 
quantity of a body required for the sense of smell 
to exercise itself upon is seen in the well-known 
case of the grain of musk, which will for years 
emit particles perceptible to smell, and yet will 
not show any diminution of weight when tested 
by the most delicate balance. The sense of smell 
is very closely allied to taste. It acts as a valu- 
able companion, a guide. It goes before taste 
with its discernment to warn and to encourage. 
It thus plays a directive part in the conservation 
of animal life by giving a preliminary hint for 
the choice and rejection of food. It also sub- 
serves the office of taste by saving the latter from 
many disagreeable experiences. As the particles 
containing the odor perceived are carried to the 
organ of smell by the atmosphere, smell wdll, evi- 
dently, enable us to reach further than will taste, 
in detecting, at least by inference, the existence — 
though distant — of an odorous body from which 
the particles come. 

Of course, the same difficulty confronts us here 
that we met with in the case of taste. Does smell 
directly perceive external reality, or have we, in 
it, simply the consciousness of a peculiar modi- 
fication of self? The general sentiment is that 
there is no direct perception of external reality, 
but that our judgment of the existence of an odor- 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 105 

ous body which we can neither touch nor see, is 
an inference drawn from a general law which we 
have established after varied experience. If this 
be so, we are thrown headlong into that unfathom- 
able question: How soon does the infant draw 
inference from personal experience? We are left 
in the abyss without light for exploration. Yet 
if, under the supposition, we will deny to the in- 
fant this power of drawdng an inference from its 
own experiences, even before it is a year old, we 
shall have no little difficult 37- in explaining many 
of its actions. We may even have to fall back 
upon the direct perception of external reality by 
the sense of smell. Why does the infant turn its 
head away from a substance that has a disagree- 
able odor? Why, even with its eyes closed, will 
it turn its head away? May it not, perhaps, by 
the sense of smell perceive directly some exter- 
nality ? 

On account of the close alliance between smell 
and taste we find the same epithets applied to the 
objects of each. So closely, indeed, are the two 
allied in the economy of life that it is sometimes 
not easy to say whether the sensation experienced 
is one of taste or of smell. 

62. Hearing. The formal object of the sense of 
hearing is that something which we call sound. 
Outside of us, in so far as we know, sound is a 
vibration of matter. These vibrations of what we 
call the sounding body are communicated to the 



106 THE TRUTH 01^ THOUGHT. 

surrounding atmosphere, thence to the tympanum 
of the ear, from this to the series of small bones 
in the middle ear, from these to the liquid in the 
labyrinth of the inner ear, and thence to the aud- 
itory nerve ; then we hear. Our notion of vi- 
bration and our notion of sound are two quite 
different things. We do not hear those vibrations 
which we find so essentially connected with the 
sound. It is only in the study of physics that we 
have learned of the existence of such vibrations. 
Whether there be outside of us something accom- 
panying the vibration, caused by the vibration and 
distinct from it, and which is the object, sound, 
which we hear, or whether sound is purely the 
manner in which the vibration of external mat- 
ter affects the sense of hearing, we do not know. 

We perceive differences of sound. Some of 
these are differences of pitch, which depends upon 
the rapidity of the vibrations in the sounding 
body. The pitch is said to be lower as the vibra- 
tions are fewer in a given time, and higher as the 
number increases in the same time. We designate 
as noise, a sound whose pitch cannot be deter- 
mined. There are, again, differences of timbre, 
which depends upon the material or construction 
of the vibrating body. By hearing we can also 
perceive that variety in the succession of sounds 
which we call melody, and that combination of 
sounds which we call harmony. 

The organ of hearing acts with great rapidity. 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 107 

A¥e can recognize as many as sixteen distinct 
successive sounds in a second. 

The great value of the sense of hearing in the 
economy of life lies in its perception and discrim- 
ination of the articulate sounds emitted by the 
human voice. It is by the perception of these, 
more than by anything else, that we are put into 
communication with our fellow men. A certain 
few articulate sounds which, taken singly and in 
groups of various combinations, are called words 
and are accepted as signs for things, give us 
the marvellous vehicle of speech upon which so- 
ciety rides. 

Do we perceive distance and direction by hear- 
ing 1 It may be said safely that we have no direct 
perception of distance by hearing. When we can- 
not see or touch the object producing the sound, 
our estimate of its distance must be purely a mat- 
ter of judgment based upon our experience of the 
variation in the intensity corresponding to the 
known variation in the distance of the object from 
which the sound proceeds. Yet, even in this case, 
we should be able to judge of that sound only 
whose intensity is invariable at a given known 
distance and which is known to be unmodified by 
accidental circumstances such as the humid state 
of the atmosphere, the presence or absence of re- 
flecting surfaces, etc. On the other hand, it may 
be positively stated that we have some direct per- 
ception of direction by hearing. This, however, 
would seem to arise from the independent action 



108 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

of the two ears. We judge very accurately 
whether a mosquito is playing his overture at our 
right ear or at our left. This species of percep- 
tion seems to be in the kind economy of nature, 
and manifests itself very early with the develop- 
ment of the organs of hearing. 

63. Sight. The organ of sight is the eye. The 
formal object of sight is light. We see light ac- 
cording to the various modes in which it is par- 
tially or entirely reflected to the eye after falling 
on material substance. When the light (sunlight) 
is perfectly reflected to the eye, we perceive what 
w^e call white. AVhen the light is divided on strik- 
ing the substance and only part of it is reflected, 
we perceive what we call color. When there is 
absolutely no reflection of light rays, the percep- 
tion is of black; or, to speak strictly, there is no 
perception. As a pure white is so rare upon the 
objects we see around us, the formal object of vis- 
ion is frequently said to be colored surface. Take 
the whitest piece of paper you can find and hold it 
up between you and the new-fallen snow, and see 
how dark the paper is. The varied perception of 
what we style color is due to the varying effect 
of the divided light rays on the optic nerve. Of 
course, we are speaking broadly, as we cannot 
enter into the details of the organ of vision. When 
substances having different powers of absorb- 
ing and reflecting the component elements lof 
white light are mixed, they assume a compound 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 109 

power (so to say) of absorption and reflection and 
give us the opportunity to perceive new shades 
of color. This composition of reflected rays may 
be said to correspond in a way to the composition 
of sound vibrations that occasions for the ear 
the sensation of harmony. 

As light is spread over surface we perceive the 
light as extended. Hence by sight we perceive 
the outlines of figures. But here there is some- 
thing to be remarked which is not generally 
known : By sight we perceive extension merely as 
if it were the extension of a plane, fiat surface, 
perpendicular to the axis of vision. This may 
seem very strange ; but it is true. Sight gives us 
no knowledge of distance except as on a plane per- 
pendicular to the axis of vision. The whole world 
lighted up outside of us is perceived by the eye as 
though it were a purely flat surface. The beauti- 
ful landscape you look upon — the broad meadows, 
the parks and villas, the sw^eep of waters beyond 
and the background of deep forest and receding 
mountains — are for you, in so far as the eye is 
concerned, simply as so many flat outlined sec- 
tions with shades of color, all as though on one 
flat surface of canvas hung up before you. The 
knowledge of distance — except of distance on 
the flat surface perpendicular to the axis of 
vision — the knowledge of the practical effects 
of perspective, of the relative size and of the 
nearness or remoteness of objects which re- 
flect light (or do not reflect it) is supplied 



110 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

altogetJier independefitly of vision. It is 
supplied originally by touch and locomotion. 
When the infant first opens ' its eyes and dis- 
tinguishes between the brightness of colors re- 
flected to its eye, all is as on a flat surface. In 
thinking of what is herein implied we may well 
marvel at tlie education of nature. The infant is 
carried about in the arms of its nurse. It is 
taught to reach out its hand for an object pre- 
sented to it. It is carried to the window and 
sees the objects in the room disappear behind it. 
It is brought out into the street for a long prom- 
enade. Objects that seemed to be on a flat surface 
are found not to be so. They are reached one 
after another. Objects that seemed to be small 
are found to be large when, after some locomo- 
tion, they are reached and the hand can be placed 
upon them. What at first seemed to be onN a 
dark shade on a flat surface is found by touch 
and locomotion to mark a recess, and what seemed 
to be only a brighter spot upon the surface is 
recognized to mark a prominence. The converg- 
ing lines of perspective in the rows of houses are 
found not to be a reality. It is discovered, after 
locomotion, that the lines do not converge. And 
thus, gradually, under the tuition of nature, the 
child is led to draw inferences regarding distance. 
From its knowledge acquired through touch and 
locomotion and with its very primary perception 
of time — a before and an after held by memory — 
whilst moving from place to place, it comes uncon- 



EXTERNAL SENSES. Ill 

sciously to combine shades and converging lines 
m such a way as to judge of relative distances and 
depths and sizes. Look at a well-made photo- 
graph of the rows of columns in an arcade or a 
gothic cathedral. You have the perspective per- 
fect, though you are looking at a flat surface. Or 
take the case of a stage-setting. When we have 
not an experience to guide us we may often find 
it difficult to say where the reality ends and where 
the painting on the canvas begins. All this knowl- 
edge, then, of distance and perspective is a pure 
inference drawn with that rapidity to which na- 
ture trains us in everything that concerns the 
needs of human life. 

64. Touch. Under the general name of touch 
we here include not merely that by which we per- 
ceive the contact of external matter, but also that 
by which we perceive temperature, as well as what 
is styled the muscular sense by which we are said 
to perceive resistance, movement, degrees of elas- 
ticity, etc. We do not here consider these as dis- 
tinct senses. The distinction of senses should be 
based upon separate organs as clearly discrim- 
inated as the eye and the ear, and upon formal 
objects as readily determinable as light and 
sound. Physiologists are working tow^ards a dis- 
tinction, but as yet they are able to give us only a 
theory; so that we are fully privileged to include 
the sense of contact, the sense of temperature and 
the muscular sense under the common name of 



112 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

touch. Besides, for our present purpose, which 
is only to indicate some of the externalities which 
we perceive by means of our bodily organs, it 
will not matter whether we reduce the sense of 
touch even to the single name of the sense of con- 
tact, and divide and subdivide the object per- 
ceived according to modes of contact as we divide 
and subdivide colors ; or whether we make twenty 
different senses out of what we here designate by 
the one name, touch. We are not making phys- 
iological investigations. 

First of all, it is well understood that we can 
have by the sense of mere contact a tactual per- 
ception of the existence of matter external to the 
body belonging to our own personality — that is, of 
matter distinct from the matter of our own bodies. 
The organ of this sense of contact is understood 
to be the system of papillse distributed over the en- 
tire surface of the human body between the dei 
mis, or under-skin, and the epidermis, the scarf-skin 
or outer-skin, which covers and protects the whole 
system of papillae. These papillae are connected 
by the nerve apparatus through the spinal column 
with the brain. By the same sense of contact, by 
a double contact, as when placing one hand upon 
the other, we have also a tactual perception of 
body-belonging-to-self. Through this double con- 
tact, aided by sight, we come to a knowledge of 
the external conformation of the human body. By 
this sense of contact we perceive distance in three 
dimensions. The localization of the part of the] 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 113 

body at which there is contact with external mat- 
ter is learned chiefly by experience, and the de- 
gree of precision to which this power of localiza- 
tion can be carried, or, at least, is carried, differs 
in different parts. Thus, it reaches a high degree 
of accuracy at the tip of the tongue, while the dis- 
cernment of the exact spot at which there is con- 
tact upon the back is not so easy. We can dis- 
tinguish simultaneously different points of con- 
tact, as on the hand and on the foot. The palm of 
the hand, by reason of exercise, and, perhaps, by 
some natural adaptation not easy to explain, is the 
best tactual instrument we have for the perception 
of figure outlines. We perceive extension by mov- 
ing an extended object over a point on the sur- 
face of the body, or by passing a point of the sur- 
face over the extended object. 

It is not very clear what may be the peculiar 
-t)paratus we possess for the perception of tem- 
perature. The power of perceiving temperature 
is spread over the w^hole human body. Moreover, 
the sensation of temperature may exist when the 
tactual sense or power of perceiving contact has 
lost its vigor, and vice versa. Our perception of 
temperature is very relative. An atmosphere that 
will feel cool to one human body may feel warm 
to another. If we have habituated ourselves to 
an atmosphere of 50° and pass to one of 60°, our 
experience, other things being equal, will be about 
the same as when we pass from 60° to 70°. Of 
two persons entering an atmosphere of 60°, the 



114 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

one from oO"" and the other from 70°, the first will 
feel warmth; and the other, cold. Intense heat 
and cold when fully communicated to the surface 
are not appreciated as heat and cold, but only as 
a source of pain. The perception of strain, as 
in lifting, of resistance and of movement is as- 
cribed to what is called the muscular sense, be- 
cause the muscles play so great a part in these 
perceptions. The physiology of the matter is not, 
however, very clear. Hence, for our present pur- 
poses, it has sufficed for us to include this per- 
ceptive power under the general name of touch. 
It is through the movements of the body and its 
members, combined with contact, that we get at 
our most precise notions of time, space and vel- 
ocity. Sight, also, plays a great part in furnish- 
ing material for these notions, and, of course, 
comes to be relied upon, as it reaches farther than 
touch or the muscular perception. In the life 
of the child, the education of the sense of touch, 
taken in its broad meaning, is the most wonder- 
ful of all the processes of nature's training of 
the senses. The exquisite capacity for cultiva- 
tion residing in touch is manifested in the educa- 
tion of the blind who have to rely so much upon it. 
Touch supplemented by sight puts before us the 
panorama of nature in all its beauty of outline, 
perspective and coloring. 

We ma}^ add here that we have a sense-percep- 
tion of certain facts lying wholly within our bod- 
ily organism, and which we do not refer to outside 



EXTERNAL SENSES. 115 

matter. However, we do not perceive all that 
takes place within the organism. We do not per- 
ceive the regular circulation of the blood; but an 
abnormal circulation may produce a perceptible 
effect which we will denominate a headache. Thus 
we also take cognizance of certain symptoms of 
disease ; of hurts ; of hunger, thirst, etc. 



CHAPTER X. IMAGINATION. 

Imagination — Imagination and Intellect — External 
Senses and Imagination — E7Tor in the Judgment — 
The Normal State — Uses of the Imagination. 

65. Imagination. To complete the list of or- 
ganic faculties engaged in the work of knowledge, 
we shall speak briefly and separately of the im- 
agination. The imagination, as the name indi- 
cates, is the power of imaging anything of which 
the reality is perceptible to some sense, that is, 
perceptible to a faculty w^orking necessarily with 
a material organ. We commonly associate the 
name, image, with the visible representation of a 
visible object. But if we are to keep the name, 
imagination, for the faculty of which we are now 
speaking (and the use of the name is universal), 
it would be just as well to employ the word image 
to signify the object which is perceived by the 
imagination after being produced by the im- 
agination. This object which terminates the ac- 
tion of the imagination is sometimes called the 
phantasm, that is, phantom-object or appearance. 
Here again we are using terms that are commonly 
appropriated to the sense of vision; and this 
shows us how^ widely vision enters into the econ- 

116 



IMAGINATION. 117 

omy of life. Any fictitious perception of that 
which is the object of any sense is the work of the 
imagination. Yon can imagine to yourself a sound, 
a color, figure, odor, taste though there be at 
hand no object upon which ear, eye, smell, etc., are 
being exercised. That image or phantasm or fancy 
is at once the product of the imagination and the 
object upon which the imagination exercises itself 
when making the image stand proxy for a reality. 

66. Imagination and Intellect. Confusion of 
Terms. One of the greatest sources — if not the 
greatest source — of confusion in philosophy as 
we find it, is the failure which not a few writers 
have made to draw a broad dividing line between 
imagination and intellect. Consequent upon this, 
of course, is the failure to mark off very distinctly 
the separate terminology belonging to the two to- 
tally distinct faculties. Since the days of Locke 
the term, idea, has been widely employed to ex- 
press the representation produced by the imagi- 
nation. But we have said that the imagination is 
limited to the imaging of that which can be the 
object of sense-perception. The term, idea, on 
the contrary, has been long consecrated from the 
days of Aristotle, to signify the intellectual rep- 
resentation, something quite different from the 
phantasm or image, and embracing in its scope 
not only that which can be the object of sense- 
perception, but that also which does not fall under 
the perception of any sense ; embracing in its 



118 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

scope whatsoever can be known; and, even when 
it is concerned with things that do fall under 
sense, differing in its make-up from the sense- 
representation of the same object. 

Look at the house across the street. Now, close 
your eyes and see it without looking at it. This is 
the work of the imagination. Call up in fancy the 
fragrance of the heliotrope, the strain of music, 
the soft touch of velvet. This fiction of the sens- 
ible object and of the sense-perception is the work 
of the imagination. Place before you in image 
(with your eyes closed) a triangle. This is the 
fancied image of a triangle, not the idea of a tri- 
angle. The image is always limited to something 
that is perceptible by some sense; and it is also 
limited, as the object of sense, to the individ- 
ual. But the idea, which belongs to the intel- 
lect, need not be limited to this or that par- 
ticular case. Your idea of triangle may become 
so broad as to embrace all triangles and be 
applicable to any particular possible triangle. 
Such universality cannot belong to the image or 
phantom object which is each time as limited as 
w^ould be the real material object for which it is 
made to do service. Besides this, we can have 
ideas or intellectual representations of many 
things that cannot be reached by sense-perception 
and imagination, of things that are incapable of 
being materially represented. Thus, cause, jus- 
tice y hope, etc., cannot fall under sense-perception, 
and yet we can have ideas of them. Moreover, the 



IMAGINATION. 119 

idea of a thing that can be perceived by sense and 
reproduced by the imagination or fancy in image, 
is something distinct from the image of the same 
thing. In the idea — even the most primitive idea 
— we catch, at once, relations as of fitness, propor- 
tion, beauty, things which as such cannot make a 
material impression; and as these relations grow 
the idea develops and grows, whilst the sense-per- 
ception and the image in the fancy remain ever 
the same. The idea is also called notion and con- 
cept. The idea is the primary element in intel- 
lectual knowledge. Pure sense-perception and im- 
agination do not rise above mere brute animal 
life. They give the bare picture as presented here 
and now in matter. But the intellect to which the 
idea belongs does not work with a material organ 
such as the brain, the eye and the ear. Even when 
it forms its idea of a particular triangle, that is 
put before the eye or is pictured in the imagina- 
tion, it goes through a spontaneous and instan- 
taneous process of analysis and synthesis, picking 
out the essentials of three lines and the enclosed 
space with three, angles. In sense-perception, 
wliother directly by the external senses or by the 
supplementary work of the imagination, we re- 
ceive and perceive only individual, present mani- 
festations of matter ; in the idea we have, at once, 
the attempted reply to the question, ^Svhat is it?" 
Tlie complete discussion of the distinction be- 
tween the intellect and the ima.s^nation and be- 
tween the idea and the image or phantasm belonp;s 



120 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

to psychology. But the distinction is of such 
prime importance and the knowledge of it is so 
essentially necessary to a correct appreciation of 
the meaning of conclusions in any department of 
philosophy, that attention should be called to it 
very early in the course of philosophical studies. 

67. External Sense and Imagination. Illusions. 

There is no difficulty in distinguishing between 
perception by the imagination and perception by 
external sense, between the reality of the object 
as perceived by the external sense and the phan- 
tom character of the object set up and then per- 
ceived by the imagination. The object as figured 
by the imagination is less vivid, less definite and 
detailed than the object as perceived by the outer 
sense. Besides, the work of the imagination is 
subject to the control of the will; you can, even at 
midnight, imagine a sunset. But you cannot see 
a sunset unless it be really before you, and if it be 
there and you open your eyes to it you cannot 
help seeing it. 

As for illusions and hallucinations, we make no 
account of them in this treatise. From these as 
well as from hasty judgments passed without suf- 
ficient evidence a great show of argument is some- 
times made to invalidate the testimony of the 
senses. The following objection we believe to be 
the strongest that is made ; and the solution of it 
supplies the principles necessary for the solution 



IMAGINATION. 121 

of all difficulties that are brought forward with the 
intent of fostering sceptical tendencies. 

The whole objection is put briefly thus : A per- 
son whose leg has been amputated at the knee 
may and does sometimes feel pain or experience 
the contact of external matter at the foot. Now 
the foot is gone ! Hence, if the senses fail in this 
case, they may fail in any other case and no re- 
liance is to be placed upon them. What is to be 
said to this! We must simply take all the facts. 
In the person spoken of there are certain nerves 
w^hich before the amputation had their terminals 
in the foot. Through the foot — and through the 
foot only — did these nerves reach out to be ex- 
ercised in the perception of external matter by 
contact. But we must not forget that it was 
chiefly through vision and double contact that the 
person learned very early to refer the point of con- 
tact to the proper part of the body — to the foot, 
by seeing the contact made with external matter 
or with the hand or with the other foot. Thus it 
was that a given nerve-excitation which always 
answered to contact at a given point came to be 
associated with and referred for its origin to a 
particular locality where these nerves had their 
terminals. Now, it comes to pass that these nerves 
are severed at the knee. The whole stretch of 
nerve from the knee to the foot disappears. The 
nerves have new terminals at the knee. WHiat may 
be the result? The result may be that when there 
is contact with external matter at the new termi- 



122 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

nals, as the signal that there is contact will be 
carried to the nerve centres along the very same 
lines as from the old terminals, thus affecting the 
nerve centre in the same way and occasioning the 
same reaction as before the amputation, the per- 
son, if not very watchful, may, at the beginning, 
refer the point of contact to the locality of the 
old terminals, forgetful for the moment of the new. 
It is done through the force of habit, and it will 
be necessary to acquire a new habit of referring 
the stimulus to the new locality of the terminals. 
In fact, to explain the whole case in a sentence, 
if the process of amputation and healing could 
have been gone through, and the person have been 
kept absolutely ignorant of what had taken place, 
an external contact which should stimulate only a 
new terminus of a nerve which had its former 
terminus for example in the heel, would neces- 
sarily be referred to the heel until the person had 
come to know that the heel was gone. Precisely 
the same thing will have to be said with regard 
to the referring of sensations of warmth, cold, 
pressure, pain, etc., to localities which do not ex- 
ist, but which did formerly contain the termini 
of the nerves at present stimulated. 

68. Error in the Judgment. It will be readily 
seen that the error just spoken of is an error of 
judgment. The expression that our senses deceive 
us, that our eyes deceive us, is philosophically 
false. The senses, the eyes, cannot deceive us. 



IMAGINATION. 123 

The senses testify to just so much as is presented 
to them, to just so much as they receive. But 
very often we presume upon our experience and 
judge things to be what they are not, concluding 
hastily and rashly from that which we perceive 
to that Avhich we do not perceive. 

69. The Normal State. Of course, then, it will 
be understood that we have been speaking of the 
senses in the normal condition of the body. The 
discussion of the peculiarities of nerve-action in 
abnormal conditions of the body or of any par- 
ticular organ, belongs to medicine, to therapeutics, 
to physiology, to the art of diagnosing disease 
from its symptoms. Here we have merely to de- 
clare and to hold fast that in the normal condition 
of the system the testimony of any sense and of 
the imagination is, just as well as that of the 
intellect, thoroughly reliable for the truthful and 
infallible recognition of its respective formal ob- 
ject. 

70. Uses of the Imagination. Each individual 
sensation would be as nothing for the growth 
of knowledge if it simply came and went and left 
nothing behind. But each individual sensation is 
re-enforced by the work of memory and imagina- 
tion which grow in activity and readiness by ex- 
ercise and throw around each new sensation a 
host of recollections and associations. In all art 
the imagination is invaluable, indispensable. It 



124 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

enables the composer to put his work before him 
in image and to judge of its figure, color, pro- 
portion, etc., to reject, to substitute, to modify, to 
add, etc., without touching or even providing the 
material. Thus he can, by setting up the phantom- 
object of the imagination, make, in a moment, the 
constructive experiment which, if made in the 
reality, would cost him months, nay years of very 
unsatisfactory toil. 



CHAPTER XI. INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 

The Intellectual Act — The Principle of Unity — Acts of 
Intellect or Mind — Mediate and Immediate Knowl- 
edge — The Idea as a Sign — The Universal Idea: 
Nominalism, Conceptualismj Realism — Thought. 

71. The Intellectual Act. All that has been 
hitherto said merges as subsidiary into the mat- 
ter of the present chapter. The perceptive ac- 
tion of the human being, man, differs from the 
perceptive action of the purely animal being in 
this, that the purely animal being has only sense- 
perception, that is, perception whose working is 
tied down to the use of a material organ, whilst 
man has, over and above this, a perceptive action 
which he exercises free from the trammels of 
eye, ear, nerves, brain, etc. This supra-sensitive 
knowing capacity, capability or power, is called 
intellect. The very name intellect (from intus 
leg ere J to read within) declares the character of 
this higher power. A sense, that is, a power 
whose working is strictly limited to the working 
of a material organ, reaches only to its formal 
object which is some particular outward quality 
of matter, and each time that the sense does act 
it has perception merely of the individual quality 

125 



126 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

Jieie and now present to it ; its action is as limited, 
tiiough vital, as the action of a mirror reflect- 
ing the various objects that pass before it. The 
sense, though its actions (like the reflections of 
the mirror) are successive, takes no cognizance of 
time as such; and though it may perceive that 
which is extended, it takes no cognizance of space 
as such. Though it represents all the points in the 
figure of the triangle it does not cognize the no- 
tiire of the triangle; it cannot cognize even its 
own formal object in the abstract and in general, 
but only as here and now^ limited to the actual 
individual case presented to it. It cannot cognize, 
at all, such things as justice, hope, temperance, 
causality, possibility, patience, etc., things which 
are not to be reached by mediate or immediate 
contact with any nerve terminus. Since, however, 
A\ e have knowledge of these things, which yet are 
incapable of acting upon or of being perceived 
through a material organ, there must be in us a 
faculty which acts without an organ and which 
even excludes the intrinsic concurrence of mat- 
ter in the performance of its peculiar supra-sen- 
sitive cognitive act. We say that there is no in- 
trinsic concurrence of matter in the execution of 
this act. We do not deny the extrinsic concur- 
rence of matter, that is, the prior or simultaneous 
act of some sense necessarily working with a ma- 
terial organ as sense always does. For there is 
a sensitive act associated at least remotely with 
every intellectual act, just as there is an intel- 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 127 

lectual perception following every sensitive act of 
knowledge. The imagination, too, a sensitive fac- 
ulty, keeps up a simultaneous working whilst the 
thought goes on. It draws its pictures as an aid 
to the easy sequence of the thought, even rest- 
lessly trying to image things that cannot be pic- 
tured. But all this object building of the imagina- 
tion is the work of sense, since it involves neces- 
sarily^ in the very act the concurrence of the cere- 
bral organism. The extrinsic concurrence of sense 
is a prior necessity to all thought. We can have 
no intellectual idea of color, for instance, unless 
we shall have first perceived color by the sense- 
perception of sight. We hold that all knowledge 
begins through sense, and we deny even so much 
as one innate idea. Yet sense-perception is not 
tjiought. The act of sense is an act totally dif- 
ferent from the act of intellect which accompanies 
and follows it ; and in the intellectual act, the con- 
cept, the judgment, the reasoning process, there 
is no concurrence of matter as there is in the act 
of e^ense. 

72. The Principle of Unity. We must here hint 
at a great vital truth of psychology, namely, the 
bond of unity that exists between the acts of the 
Individ aal person, in that th^y all proceed from 
and are all predicated of, attributed to the one 
identical subject, the ego, the me, self. There 
must, for this reason, be some principle of unifi- 
cation. There must be a certain one something 



128 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

pervading the whole of each individual human 
being, a something which besides being one 
and identical in every atom of that human being 
(since the temperature of head and of foot, the 
walk, the thought, etc., all belong to the same iden- 
tical me) is also the primary agent or principle 
in each and all of the acts attributed to self (for 
I think, I walk, I am warm). This primary prin- 
ciple we call the spiritual soul. In its permanency 
and continuity it primarily constitutes the per- 
manent, continuous self. This soul cannot be mat- 
ter, for it does w^hat no mere material agent can 
do. However, it can act with matter as with an 
instrument. It vivifies the body; and with the 
body, with the material sense-organs whose life 
it supplies from its higher domain, it reaches out 
to the external, material world. But its other 
acts, the intellectual idea, the judgment, the argu- 
ment, do not admit matter into their working. 
Still, it is the one same individual ego, self, that 
claims all the acts. This one self has a permanent 
root or principle by which it continues to be itself, 
ever the same. This permanent root or principle 
is the soul. Some speak of soul as mind. But the 
term, mind, is not purely s^aionymous with soul. 
It is not adequate; and hence, its use as synony- 
mous is not philosophically correct. Mind is the 
power or capability of purely intellectual action 
w^hich is possessed by the soul. The soul, the prin- 
ciple of unity and permanency in the human com- 
pound, has the power of seeing with the eye, of 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 129 

lieariug with the ear, and of exercising diverse ac- 
tions with the other organs respectively. But it 
possesses, moreover, the power of understanding , 
the power of exercising cognitive action without 
employing any material instrument or bodily 
organ, — and this power w^e call intellect or mind. 
Mind is the general term for the power the soul 
possesses of exercising cognitive action without 
the use of an organ in the act. The soul possesses 
also another purely immaterial and spiritual 
power, the rational will. The discussion of the 
will, of the appetitive power, does not enter into 
our subject. We are occupied solely with the 
cognitive powers, with cognition. 

Neither do we take up, at this point, the ques- 
tion of the soul. The discussion of the soul is in 
the domain of psychology. But Ave have had to 
speak of soul in order to indicate the root of 
unity in the human compound; and to divide off 
two sets of cognitive faculties possessed by the 
soul, the one whereby through the body it puts 
itself into communication with the world of mat- 
ter, and the other whereby from material thus 
gained it builds up the structure of intellectual 
knowledge. 

It is very easy to deny the existence of such a 
thing as a spiritual, immaterial soul and of im- 
material thought, offering as a plea that they 
cannot be investigated by means of the eyes and 
the ears and the sense of touch. There is never 
any other ground upon which they are denied : but 



130 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

tho denial of them on this ground always clearl ! 
indicates the lack of philosophical acumen and ( 
philosophical education. 

V3. Acts of Intellect or Mind. The chief acts < 
the intellect are : 1, simple apprehension, that i > 
tlie formmg of a concept or the catching of i 
iaea; 2, judgment, which is the objective co] , 
pan son oi laeas and the consequent affirmatii ^c- 
or denial of any given relationship between the *- 
objectb as perceived; 3, reasoning or the cor 
purison of the objective content of judgments, ai 
the consequent affirmation or denial of new r iX> 
lationships perceived. The judgment, when fi '^ 
ished, becomes practically an apprehension of 
relation, thus giving a composite concept or ide fel 
and the act of reasoning w^hen finished gives t 
practically a complex idea or concept or notion. ' 

For the defining of its concepts the intelk 
brings its activity into play under those phas ) 
which we call attention and abstraction. I '^ 
means of attention it can concentrate itself up< ^r 
one note or characteristic or quality in the obje 
considered; and by the force cf the will, even tl 
outer sense may be made to subserve this concei 
tration. Look, for instance, at any object. You ge 
a visual perception, a sense perception of its color 
figure, dimensions. Fix your attention on its color 
only, and you will find the eye following the mind 
and seeming not to notice the figure. Fix youi 
attention on the figure, and you will find the ey 



I 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 131 

pparently noticing not the color, but subserving 
le concentration of the mind upon the figure. We 
ave here the beginning of abstraction — a thing 
) necessary in the formation of the idea — by 
hich the mind abstracts from the total object 
firceived some one note, character or quality; 
id this abstraction is eventually carried so far 
at the mind neglects even the individuality of 

t e color, figure, etc., as existing here and now 
a particular object, and forms its universal 
iea of the given color or other quality as capable 
^ being found concreted in many objects. 

( 

<' 74. Mediate and Immediate Knowledge. Medi- 

e knowledge is that which is obtained through 
e medium of the process .of reasoning. We are 
t' t speaking here of knowledge obtained through 
e medium of human testimony. Immediate 
^ lOwledge is that which is obtained without the 
adium of the process of reasoning. This im- 
i^diate knowledge may regard either an indi- 
dual fact gotten at by direct sense-perception, 
; ''the sky is dark^' ; or it may regard a universal 
priori principle such as ''that which exists not 
annot bring itself into existence.'' Immediate 
:nowledge is obtained by what is called intuition, 
)y merely beholding the truth. In reading cer- 
tain philosophical works we must be on our guard 
not to be confused by the very indefinite way in 
which the term, intuition, is employed. It is well 
give it one meaning, its real meaning, and to 



XS2 THE TRUTH OF THOITGMT. 

adhere tenaciously to that ineaning: the behoJd- 
iiig, perceiving, of a truth, whether individual fact- 
or general principle, directly upon its presenta- 
tion and without the aid of the reasoning process. 

75. The Idea as a Sign. A very ancient ex- 
pression employed in connection with the part 
which the idea plays in knowledge has been so 
extensively misused as to cause a very widespread 
error concerning the process of knowledge. The 
expression is this, " signnm quo.'' It was in use 
when Latin was the universal language of the 
educated, and before any of the modern languages 
were even aspiring to a literature. The misunder- 
standing regarding the meaning of the expression 
lias arisen from the manner in which it has been 
carried into our modern languages, that is by a 
mistake of translation. The idea {idea) was 
called a signum quo ohjectum cognoscitur, that is, 
a sign by ivhicli the object is known. But there 
are different kinds of signs. A sign is something 
that stands for something else. As we take the 
word sign in common discourse it means some-'^ 
thing by the perceiving of which we are led to 
think of something else. A sign may be a natural 
sign as being naturally connected with some- 
thing else : thus smoke is a natural sign of fireJ- 
A sign may be purely arbitrary: thus the painted •• 
letters Washington indicate to us a great historic 
personality. These two kinds of signs are signs 
which being seen first lead us to think of that fot--' 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 133 

which they stand. But when the idea was origi- 
nally called a sign, signum, it was not so called in 
the sense that it was something that had first to 
be perceived so that from it we should be carried 
to think of something for which it stood. Re- 
member that the idea is an act of the mind. Now 
this act is truly representative of something. But 
we do not first get an idea, then gaze mentally at 
that idea and out of the knowledge of it come to 
know the object of which it is representative and 
for which it stands. This would make knowledge 
an impossibility. For by perceiving the first idea 
we should simply get a second idea which would 
only be an idea or a sign of the first. We should 
have then to gaze mentally at this second idea 
to get a knowledge of the first. But what would 
happen then? We should simply get a third idea 
Avhich would be a sign of the second. In gazing 
mentally at this we should get a fourth idea which 
would be a sign of the third. And thus through 
a lifetime we would not get through with one idea. 
What, then? 

Two things must be kept in mind. 1. The idea 
is a cognitive act; it is an act of the intellect; 
hy it the object is known. 2. But, moreover, just 
because it is a cognitive act it is in its entirety 
representative somehow of the object known. 
Since it is a cognitive act it is that hy which {quo) 
we know the object ; and since it is representative 
it can be called a sign (signum): so that thus it is 
really ^^a sign by which" (signum quo). But it is 



134 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

not a sign in the sense of the signs described above. 
It is also a sign in quo, in which. In the very act 
we know the object ; and it is called a sign simply 
because that cognitive act must be in its entirety 
representative. The other kind of sign, the smoke, 
for instance, is a sign ex quo, out of which, from 
which being known we know or infer the fire. The 
smoke as a sign has first to be known as an ob- 
ject, and from it we pass to the knowledge of an- 
other object, the fire. But we do not have to know 
the idea as a sign from which to infer the ob- 
ject of the idea; the idea is itself the act of 
knowledge. In fact, in an act of direct knowledge 
we do not advert to the idea. We advert to it 
only when by a reflex act of the mind we turn to the 
consideration of the idea as we would turn to the 
consideration of any other object of thought. Had 
the true original meaning of the idea as a sign 
been preserved, namely, that it is a signum in quo 
and not a signum ex quo, the philosophy of thought 
would have been spared many a charge of un- 
certainty and confusion. 

76. The Universal Idea. Nominalism; Con- 
ceptualism; Realism. It is proper for us to call 
attention here to another confusion introduced in- 
to philosophy concerning the objective value of 
the idea that we denominate universal. In the 
book on Formal Logic (Laws of Thought, No. 19) 
we said, ^'When several objects are expressed by 
an idea, but in such a way that the idea not only 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 135 

embraces them all, but is applied to them dis- 
tributively and individually, we have what is 
called a universal idea. Thus: Man, horse, gold. 
I can say, Man is a living being, meaning that all 
men are living beings; meaning also that each in- 
dividual man is a living being, A plain exposition 
of what is meant by the universal idea, direct and 
reflex, will be found in the *^Laws of Thought'' 
(Nos. 20; 28). The special reason for introduc- 
ing here once more, the subject of the Universal 
in so far as it is a matter of logic is, that the 
meaning of the expression has been confused by 
not a few writers who are given places of prom- 
inence. We may classify these writers as Nom- 
inalists, as Conceptualists and as Ultra-Bealists. 

Those whom we call Nominalists say that uni- 
versality is only in the name, in terms, in words. 
Certainly, we do all admit a certain universality 
of signification attached to and belonging to words. 
But here, say the Nominalists, all universality of 
signification stops. When the term man, the word 
man, is used in the general sense, they say they 
can find no universal object, man in general, cor- 
responding to it ; hence, neither can there be any 
universal idea, because the idea is only represen- 
tative of the object, and as there can be no such 
thing as a universal object so can there be no 
universal idea. It remains, therefore, according 
to them, that what is called universality of sig- 
nification consists simply in the arbitrary use of 
one word or name to express a certain similitude 



136 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

which may have been perceived in various objects. 
Amongst Nominalists we might range Hobbes,, 
Hume, Berkeley and J. S. Mill. 

Conceptualists are those who, recognizing, of 
course, that there is a certain universality of 
meaning attached to words, add, very justly, that 
words are valueless except in so far as they are 
the faithful record and sign of ideas; and that, 
hence, whatever universality of signification at- 
taches to the word or term, must necessarily at- 
tach to the idea or concept for which the word 
stands proxy, in the interchange of thought ; nay 
that the universality accorded to the word — writ- 
ten or spoken — must necessarily belong primarily 
to the idea of which the word can never be more 
than an arbitrary representative appointed by 
the free will of the thinker. The Conceptualists, 
with the Nominalists, and alleging the same rea- 
son, den^^ all objective universality; but they as- 
sert that the universality of signification belongs 
primarily to the concept, and that it is onh^ trans- 
ferred arbitrarily to the w^ord which happens to 
be chosen for the purpose of giving external ex- 
pression to the concept. Kant's theory of know^l- 
edge is pure Conceptualism. Kant, not recogniz- 
ing that we obtain true knowledge directly from 
objects, assumed that the intellect was supplied 
with a set of ideas which it applied to impressions 
received from without through the senses ; that it : 
instinctively applied the same idea (which he., 
called '^form,") to similar impressions, thus, in 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 137 

fact, building up the external world out of the 
mere idea. All '^ systems" of philosophy which 
begin by accepting Kant's assumption are easily 
reducible to Conceptualism. 

The Ultra-Realist assumes that there is an ac- 
tually existing universal something corresponding 
to the universal idea. The plea for Ultra-Real- 
ism we present briefly and with all its force as fol- 
lows : It is agreed that an individual word can 
have a general or universal signification, the same 
word standing for the whole class and for all the 
objects of the class taken distributively. Now the 
Conceptualist has shown that this universality of 
signification in the word must necessarily belong, 
even previously, to the idea of which the word is 
only the appointed vicar. Following up his own 
line of argument the Conceptualist must logically 
admit that as even the idea itself is nothing more 
than the representative of the object, the intel- 
lectual vicar of the object, so, if there be a truly 
universal idea, there must also be a truly universal 
object of which the idea is only the intellectual 
representative. Thus, for example, besides the 
individual man known by the individual idea, there 
Avill be a universal something, a humanity-in-gen- 
eral-existing-as-one-object, represented by the 
general or universal idea, man. In so far as the 
theory of knowledge goes we may say that no 
writer of to-day thinks of directly advancing this 
ultra-realism. It was held by William of Cham- 
peaux in the twelfth century: and Aristotle, per- 



138 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

haps not too correctly, lays it to the account of 
Plato. Fundamentally, nevertheless, an ultra- 
realism is assumed by all writers of pantheistic 
tendencies. 

What are we to hold! If we will be consistent 
we most hold to a certain realism. But if we will 
not reject experience, we must make this a real- 
ism that is not ultra. Nominalism and concept- 
ualism both stop short of the truth ; ultra-realism 
leaps beyond it. We must avoid the defect and 
the excess. We must admit the signifying power 
which a word has to stand for many objects of a 
kind; and the same must be allowed to the con- 
cept, since the word is only the external expres- 
sion of the concept. Yes, but term and concept 
are only the expression (oral and mental) of the 
object. Hence, the concept, whether individual or 
universal, must have its object. Hence we must 
say with the realist that not only the individual 
idea but also the universal idea has its object. 
However, we do not with the ultra-realist jump 
immediately to the conclusion that to the one idea 
of man in general, for instance, there corresponds 
a certain object which is man in general, in the 
same manner as an individual object, Christopher 
Columbus, corresponds to my individual idea. Here 
we part with the ultra-realist ; and yet we remain 
realists, thus going beyond the nominalist and the 
conceptualist. Truth afd consistency oblige us 
to hold to a certain realism which by some is de- 
nominated moderate to distinguish it from ultra- 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 139 

realism. What this object of the universal idea 
is, has been sufficiently explained for present pur- 
poses in that part of the '^Laws of Thought'' re- 
ferred to above. The following example may per- 
haps serve to determine the meaning that is to be 
attached to the name realism or moderate realism. 
Set yourself to thinking. Let your thoughts be 
these — ^^A triangle is a space enclosed by three 
straight lines; the three lines form three angles; 
the three angles added together will make 180° or 
two right angles; a line drawn parallel to one of 
the sides of the triangle and across the two other 
sides will divide these two other sides according 
to same ratio; etc., etc." Y\^hat have you been 
doing? You have been using the concept or idea 
''triangle," in the universal sense; and if you 
have been speaking your thoughts, you have been 
using the term 'Hriangle" in the universal sense. 
You have been using idea and term in such a way 
as to embrace any and every triangle. Yet there 
is no such thing as a universal triangle exist- 
ing or capable of existing in nature as the one ob- 
ject of this one idea or term which is universal 
in its application. We need not even claim that 
there is a triangle existing at all. Where, then, 
is the object of your universal idea? That is the 
question. The idea *' triangle" which you have 
been using is applicable to any triangle whether 
actually existing or even only possible in the past, 
present or future — in eternity. Your idea is, 
therefore, fully universal. Nevertheless, it has 



140 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

not been directed to any one of them in particular. 
Whilst thinking, you did indeed use your imagina- 
tion to picture to yourself some kind of a triangle. 
But this you did only as an aid to thought; and 
the picture was very vague and perhaps changing 
shape every few seconds, showing indifferently 
any sort of triangle-image, which, nevertheless, 
of whatever kind, was felt always to correspond 
to your idea of '^triangle,'' this idea embracing 
simply the essentials common to any triangle pos- 
sible in an eternity. What corresponded as an 
object to this ideal Not that ever changing im- 
age formed by the imagination, but a certain some- 
thing which you threw out mentally before you as 
containing the essentials of the triangle and thus 
forming by a fiction of the mind an object which 
would stand you in the place of any and all tri- 
angles when you wished to think of triangle in 
general. This sort of object, the object of the 
universal idea, is called an ens rationis, a being 
of reason, since it is a creation of the intellect. 
Of course, as we have said, whilst you are think- 
ing, the imagination will not be quiet but will keep 
on forming vague pictures of individual triangles ; 
but these are not the object of the universal idea, 
— they are only material aids with which the imag- 
ination kindly supplies you whilst you are think- 
ing. Now, here, in this object, this ens rationis, 
which the intellect fabricates for itself, we have, 
nevertheless, a realism. These essentials of tri- 
angle, collected from any triangle, are looked at 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 141 

as representative of the essence of any triangle 
whatsoever, — the individual peculiarities of said 
triangle and the individual triangle itself being- 
thrown away and forgotten. The object is uni- 
versal, as universal as the idea. Where does the 
realism lief In this, that such object of the uni- 
versal idea can be formed from any triangle in 
the possibilities, and that it can be applied to and 
stand for any triangle. The object, the fiction of 
the intellect, has its ground in reality wherever 
that reality does or even- may exist. Though a 
creation of the mind, it is firmly grounded upon 
and legitimately formed from any and all the in- 
numerable individual cases that do or may exist. 
It is to be remarked of Nominalists that their 
Universal term, and of Conceptualists, that their 
universal concept is not truly a universal. With 
very shallow philosophical insight they say that 
they simply use one word or concept to stand for 
many things in which a similitude is perceived. 
This absolutely destroys all claim to universality 
of signification in the term and concept; and it 
destroys, at a stroke, all science which is built 
upon identity, not upon similitude of significa- 
tion, in the application of the terms that enter into 
general laws. Our universal idea has one object : 
this object relates to many; it can be formed, iden- 
tically the same, from any one individual case ; 
and its application back again to the individuals 
is not by Avav of similitude but bv wav of identity. 



142 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

77. Thought. An idea is not commonly spoken 
ot' as thought ; but as an element of thought. The 
term, thought, is usually presumed to imply predi- 
cation, a judgment; and an idea is an element of 
the judgment. It is not even clear that we can 
have a solitary idea without simultaneously for- 
mulating some primary judgment in which it is 
contained either as subject or predicate. We have 
said a great deal about the universal idea because 
it is an absolutely essential element in continuous 
thought. If we had no universal ideas, our 
thoughts, our judgments would follow one another 
simply like shooting stars, each and every judg- 
ment reducing itself to an individual affirmation™ 
Each judgment would reduce itself to the formula 
'Hhis is this" and could not pass beyond. We 
could not so much as say, water is liquid, because 
we should thus be using the subject in the univer- 
sal sense. If there were not universal ideas it 
would not be lawful for us to combine the thing 
here present to us with other things absent or 
possible which we would designate by the same 
term, w^ater. And in applying the designation, 
water, to the present thing under" consideration 
we should have to apply it individually as we 
appl}^ the name G eorge Washington to a one some- 
thing. After applying the name, water, to one 
thing, with which we slaked our thirst by the road- 
side, it would be absu]'d to apply the same name, 
water, to another thing near by in which we 
washed our hands, unless we admitted the univer- 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 143 

sal both in the idea and in the term. If there 
were no universal idea combining even these two 
in an identical intellectual representation it would 
still be more ridiculous, when words are so easily 
made, to employ the same word, water, ten thou- 
sand times over, to characterize as many separate 
liquid things met with in the course of a lifetime. 

. Then, the same difficulty arises with regard to the 
use of the term, liquid, in the various judgments. 
Have we or have w^e not a general notion, which 
we express by the term, liquid? If we have not, 
why should we create such confusion by employ- 
ing the same word to express so many things? 
But if there is no universality of ideas, what do 
all judgments become? Merely '^this is this'' and 
**that is that," and science is brought down to a 
list of predications regarding some individual 
thing that can be thought of. Science can be no 
longer a simultaneous predication for all the in- 
dividuals of a class. The science of gravitation 
must be expanded to a list of predications sepa- 
rate and distinct for each individual atom of 
matter. 

We have here, then, clearly enough manifested 

I to us by the very needs of life the objective value 
of the universal judgment. The truth of thought 
consists in the correspondence of thought — in its 

^own native representative way — to object. By 
object is meant not merely that which is the 
object of sense-perception. Object means what- 
soever can be thought of, whether it be in itself 



144 THE TRUTH GF THOUGHT. 

perceptible to sense or not. Thought itself can 
be made an actual object of thought; and such 
we are making it in our present consideration. 
Thought, judgment, must necessarily correspond 
to object when we make no declaration beyond 
what is objectively presented to us. 

Is argument thought ! Yes. Is there argument 
in the object or objects reasoned about! No. 
How, then, does argument correspond to object! 
In this way. Argument is nothing else than the 
natural human mental method of acquiring knowl- 
edge, in which the universal idea is used as a step- 
ping stone from one judgment to another. Each 
individual premiss, major and minor (excluding 
the case of error), has its own correspondence. 
The premisses are, equivalently at least, a com- 
posite apprehension, in which a common notion is: 
perceived to be, objectively, either identified with 
each of two other notions, or, identified with onei 
of them and excluded by the other. The two 
judgments are thus, therefore, treated as a com- 
posite of ideas and are put together to form a 
new judgment just as two simple ideas would be 
combined in a simple judgment. When the two 
judgments are approached to one another and are 
seen by means of the common part, which is rep- 
resented by the middle term, to merge into one, 
objectively, the result perceived is expressed by 
the affirmative conclusion, which is the mental 
expression of what has been thus objectively per- 
ceived just as clearly and as surely as in the sim- 



INTELLECT AND THOUGHT. 145 

pie judgment ; but if only one of the notions is 
seen to be identified objectively with the notion 
expressed by the middle term, whilst the other is 
excluded by it, the result perceived is expressed 
by the negative conclusion. 



CHAPTER XII. ERROR. 

Error — Error is not Physically Necessary — The i^avage 
and the Sun — Error and the Will — Error and Opin- 
ion — Normal State— Objections Raised — An Idealist 
Difficulty. 

78. Error. What was said of logical truth is to 
be said of logical falsity or error, namely, that it 
is to be found in the strictly defined judgment, 
only; in the mental act which associates two ob- 
jects of apprehension by affirmative predication 
or dissociates them by negative predication; in 
the act which affirms or denies. There can be no 
error in the simple apprehension or in the sense- 
perception. For as Ave cannot apprehend what 
does not come before the mind for apprehension, 
nor see, for instance, what is not presented to the 
eye to be seen, there is no possibility of error be- 
ing committed in the execution of these acts. 

We do, indeed, often hear and read the expres- 
sions, ^^false ideas,'' "false notions;'' but there 
cannot be a false idea or notion, because the idea 
or notion, though an element-of-the-judgment, 
must be considered as simply an element and as 
independent of all affirmation or denial. The ex- 
pressions "false ideas," "false notions," are, 

146 



ERROR. 147 

then, really intended to indicate false judgments, 
false definitions, which have been unwarily ac- 
cepted. Thus, when a man is said to have a false 
idea of justice, or honor, or education, what is 
meant is, that he has accepted a false definition 
of justice or honor or education, that he has 
formed a false judgment, that he has coupled with 
the idea of justice or of honor or of education 
other ideas which do not belong to it at all or 
which do not belong to it in the way in which he 
has judged. 

79. Error is not Physically Necessary. Error, 
then, attaches to the judgment. It is the non-con- 
formity of the judgment with the object upon 
which the judgment in its representative char- 
acter passes sentence. But here arises a diffi- 
culty. The act of judgment is the perception or 
affirmation, or if 3^ou will, the perception and 
affirmation of the objective agreement or dis- 
agreement of two concepts. When there is an 
error, the judgment does not conform to the ob- 
ject. But, how can this be? The intellect per- 
ceives simply that which is presented to it. How, 
then, can it affirm that which is not presented to 
it, and hold to this affirmation as though it had 
perceived what it affirms? How can it commit an 
error? The intellect, certainly, cannot choose to 
perceive that which is not presented to it ; neither 
can it be forced to such act of perception. For, 
such act is an impossibility. By the physical law 



148 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

of its nature the intellect is necessitated to the 
perception of that, and of that only, which is pre- 
sented to it with evidence, jnst as by a physical 
law the eye, in good condition, must see by the 
light and cannot see by darkness, and just as mat- 
ter must gravitate towards matter and cannot 
tend from matter. Hence, should we admit that 
error could be, in any instance, physically neces- 
sary, this could be only on the ground that a 
truth presented to the intellect should shine not 
with its own evidence but with the evidence of 
some other truth, even of its own contradictory. 
How, then, can an error be caused? What is its 
origin or source? Error, we have said, is the 
non-conformity of the affirmation or negation with 
the object. But this cannot come from the object; 
because the object has nothing but its own evi- 
dence to present. It cannot come from the nat- 
iiral activity which the intellect exercises of it- 
self ; because the intellect by itself simply accepts 
the evidence and reproduces mentally the objec- 
tive truth. The cause of the non-conformity is to 
be found elsewhere. It is to be found in the will. 
Whenever there is an error, th6 re are two judg- 
ments. There is the natural act of the intellect 
by which a certain evidence is received and a cer- 
tain objective truth is affirmed; and besides this> 
there is a pure affirrhation made undef the im- 
pulse of the will be^^ond the evidence and, there- 
fore, without evidence. Let us try to explain this 
by an example. 



ERROR. 



149 



80. i The Savage and the Sun. A savage sits all 
day at the door of his hut looking towards the 
south. In the morning he sees the snn to his left 
and low upon the horizon. In the middle of the 
day it is above him. Just before the night sets 
in it is again low upon the horizon, but to his 
right. What is really evident to the savage 1 One 
thing; a change in the relative positions of him- 
self and the sun. What might be the cause of this 
phenomenon, to-wit, the evident change of relative 
positions? It might be movement on the part of 
the sun. It might be movement on the part of the 
savage and his hut. It might be movement of both 
the savage and the sun. There is evidence to the 
savage of a change of relative positions. By the 
physical law of his intellect he has to receive this 
evidence; and in the act of thus receiving it, 
passes his infallible judgment upon the relative 
change. But perhaps he does more. It may be 
that he goes beyond the evidence. Whilst he has 
been sitting at the door of his hut he has seen the 
flight of birds across the sky, and he has seen the 
path of the arrows which his fellow savages sent 
after the birds. He did not move ; but the birds 
did, and so did the arrows. There was a change 
of relative position between himself on the one 
hand, and the birds and arrows on the other ; and 
the cause of this phenomenon presented to him 
with evidence was the movement of the birds and 
of the arrows. He has found an actual cause in 
one case. It would be a sufficient cause in the 



150 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

other case. He goes no further, but affirms: the 
sun moves around the earth. This is a pure 
affirmation, a mock judgment made without evi- 
dence under the impulse of the will. There is evi- 
dence, indeed, that this would be a sufficient 
cause; but there is not evidence that this is the 
cause. However, the natural inquisitiveness of 
the intellect being satisfied, the will interferes and 
orders to be taken for granted this false declara- 
tion which quiets the tendency of the savage in- 
tellect. Under the same impulse the savage might 
declare the moon to be flat. 

We can secure plentiful parallel illustrations 
without going to the extremity of providing our- 
selves with a savage. 

81. Error and the Will. Error, then, always 
implies an act of will at its source. It is the ac- 
ceptance of a false declaration which is not forced 
by evidence, since there is no evidence. The ac- 
ceptance, therefore, not being spontaneous, that 
is, necessitated by the very nature of the intellect, 
must be brought about by the will. There is an 
element of will entering somewhere ; there is some 
good perceived which motives the will to the ac- 
ceptance of the declaration as satisfactory. The 
erroneous declaration satisfies some present crav- 
ing of the human person. It satisfies some ap- 
petency which happens to be manifesting itself. 
The appetency may be of the speculative or of the 
practical order. It may be a thirst for knowledge 



ERKOR. 



151 



in the way of sufficient causes; or it may be a 
longing to which there is held out a hope of being 
satisfied through a conclusion drawn without a 
consideration of many modifying circumstances. 
There is, indeed, just enough to calm the present 
tendency. The will steps in: it stops the investi- 
gation. For, the will is a blind power ; it does not 
see for itself : and the craving is clamoring against 
delay. Or, the will, under the same restless de- 
mand, even turns the intellect to the contempla- 
tion of favoring analogies and of arguments 
which in their incompleteness make for the jus- 
tice of the desired end. Under the impulse of the 
will, then, the attention of the intellect may be 
arrested or it may be so directed as to be given 
no chance for reflex consideration, the will forc- 
ing it here and there to skip an evidence and to 
take in any plausible appearance that may suit 
the present emotion. The vehemence of the ap- 
petition by which the will is moved may be re- 
enforced by special conditions on the part of the 
intellect; by prejudices, incautious acceptance of 
testimony, forgetfulness, confusion of previously 
received knowledge and of the meaning of terms, 
by want of capacity, etc. 

It would be difficult, and it is certainly out of 
place here to attempt to enumerate the thousand 
inclinations, the bewildering complexities of mo- 
tives that lie at the root of erroneous judgments. 
We may be simply in a hurry, and we leap at con- 
clusions. We may, perhaps, be a little lazy, and 



152 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

only too glad to shirk the searching investigation. 
How readily this may happen in things which are 
not of vital importance ! With the knowledge we 
have gained by experience of the general correct- 
ness of certain judgments made upon certain data, 
we plough ahead through decisions for the sake 
of gaining time and saving labor. 

Sometimes, when a correct conclusion can be 
drawn no otherwise than by the combination of 
the evidences of numerous data and there happens 
to be a lack of memory or instruction or a lack of 
skill in composing the various evidences, vanity 
and presumption may strongly solicit the will of 
a false declaration. 

New evidences of further truths are always pre- 
senting themselves to the mind as education ad- 
vances. At the same time, by graduated practice, 
constantly increasing skill is acquired for the 
combination of evidences in complicated proc- 
esses. An excellent illustration of this and of 
the possibilities of error may be found in the 
progress of a game of chess. Both players have 
the game entirely open before them. The begin- 
ner does not see the distant complication that is 
evident to the expert. And even if both players 
are equally matched, it may be that whilst one is 
announcing his own victory in the next move,— :- 
he is mated b}^ his opponent. 

Although, as w^e have said, error can never be 
a physical necessity, since this would imply the 
beholding of evidence where there is no evidence^ 



ERROE. 153 

still error may sometimes be morally inevitable. 
When we say that error is morally inevitable or 
morally necessary, we mean, that, considering the 
way in which men do (not must) use their free 
will, we may rest satisfied that in given circum- 
stances they ivill (not must) use it in such a way 
as to accept a false declaration. It is on a clever 
application of this principle that the success of 
the marvelous tricks of jugglers is based. It is 
morally impossible that the savage should not 
accept with the quiet of certitude his decision in 
regard to the movement of the sun. Nothing had 
ever been said to him and no thought had ever 
occurred to him which might lead him to suspect 
the rotation of the earth. He thought of but one 
sufficient explanation for the phenomenon of 
change of position. This explanation was a move- 
ment on the part of the sun. He accepted his 
conclusion as a manifest application of a prin- 
ciple which he had drawn by induction from his 
life's experience. His error was a moral neces- 
sity. 

82. Error and Opinion. We must be careful not 
to confound opinion with error. The adhering to 
an opinion merely as an opinion, is not an error, 
even though the opinion be what we call the wrong 
opinion. Of two contradictory statements, one 
person may hold the one as an opinion, and an- 
other the other. This means only that the ar,2:u- 
ments for one statement seem the more wei^htv 



154 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

to the first person, and that the arguments for the 
other statement seem the more weighty to the sec- 
ond person. One of the statements is undoubt- 
edly false ; yet neither is evidently so. 

The quite general acceptance of an opinion 
does not indicate that it is held with certitude nor 
that its contradictory is denied. It is held as very 
highly probable: and its contradictory, as hardly 
or very slightly probable. Though a very highly 
probable opinion does not rise to the degree of 
certitude, still men will often act upon it without 
hesitation, recognizing all the time that it is only 
an opinion; and indeed many of the benefits of 
civilization owe their wide extension much to the 
fact that in the material affairs of life men are 
often content to act upon a very strong proba- 
bility. 

83. Normal State. We have to repeat here, 
once more, that we are speaking of the normal 
man — of man in what is recognized to be the nor- 
mal state of the human body. The organ of hear- 
ing may be so affected that there is no perception 
of sound; and the organ of vision, so that there 
is no visual response to the emission of light-rays 
from external objects. The sensory nerves may 
be in such condition that what we call contact-per- 
ception by touch ceases absolutely to manifest it- 
self. But these are not normal states. Hence, in 
discussing the general principles of cognition in 
the normal man, we are not obliged to introduce 



ERROR. 155 

the discussion of the various abnormal conditions 
of the nervous organism. Taking this necessary 
stand — necessary that we may be able to speak 
of the human race in general, — we rid ourselves 
at once of a thousand and one objections which 
are to no purpose but which can be brought in at 
inopportune moments to arrest the progress of 
our study. The man born blind will form judg- 
ments of color as of something that can be reached 
by touch ; and the man born deaf will form judg- 
ments of sound as of something that can be 
reached by sight. Of course, the error, here, 
starts in the will urging the intellect to strive 
after a vague concept, and the judgment is 
formed, under the impetus of the thirst for knowl- 
edge, without sufficient grounds. The same is to 
be said of all false judgments formed upon sense- 
perceptions made through organs partially de- 
ranged. Therefore, all cases out of the normal, 
as well where the perceptive organism is partially 
deranged as where it is totally and hopelessly dis- 
ordered in any particular, are outside of the gen- 
eral discussion entirely. 

Those who have what are termed hallucinations, 
who seem, for example, to see what they do not 
see, or to hear sounds that do not exist, are to be 
classed with the hopelessly disordered, so long as 
these hallucinations exist. That their perceptive 
organism is affected under the hallucination in 
the same manner as when there is real perception 
with an object perceived cannot be denied, as we 



156 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 



may learn from those who suffer in this way and 
who recognize, afterwards, that they have been 
under the hallucination. Once they become cog- 
nizant of their affection they may, by suspending 
judgment for a while in particular matters, do 
much to avoid false judgments. But the case of 
the erroneous judgment made in good faith under 
the hallucination does not belong to the normal 
human condition which we are considering. It is 
a case where by the influence of some particular 
disease the sensory organ is modified from within 
just as it would have been modified from without 
in normal sense-perception. 

84. Objections Raised. The great objection 
raised against the truth of mere perception is 
that even when the organs are normal, the ap- 
pearance in many cases is always contrary to the 
fact. This objection is brought particularly 
against the trustworthiness of perception by vi- 
sion. What we have already said about vision 
will be remembered. The eye does not see dis- 
tance except as on a plane perpendicular to the 
axis of vision. The eye merely receives varia- 
tions of light and shade (of brighter and darker) 
in color, which are separated from one another 
only as on such a plane. Hence the impression 
of the landscape is no other than it would be if 
the same lights and shades in color came from the 
flat surface of the canvas; and these lights and 
shades are sometimes reproduced upon the canvas 



ERROR* 157 

with such imitative skill that the imitation cannot 
be distinguished from the reality. 

A special difficulty may be that of the direction 
of lines even on the perpendicular plane. You 
are sitting in a small boat which rests upon the 
bosom of a clear lake. The oars are hanging idle 
in the water. You look down, and lo! the oar 
seems to bend at the water's edge. And yet it is 
not bent. Here is a presentation that differs from 
the reality. Not at all. You are receiving light 
rays from an object (the part of the oar under 
water) through two mediums of different densi- 
ties, the water and the atmosphere. The light 
rays change direction when passing from one me- 
dium to the other. If you want to pass judgment 
upon the straightness of the oar you must take 
the fact of refraction into consideration. Again, 
you are traveling over the prairie on a train. The 
rails run out behind you in straight parallel lines. 
You know that the rails are parallel, because the 
train has run over them safely. Yet they are pre- 
sented to the eye as coming together in the dis- 
tance. The presentation contradicts the fact ! In 
no wise. You must see and judge according to 
the law of vision. Sight will not give you every- 
thing. Sight will not give you the odor of the 
violet. In the case of the rails you are not making 
account of what is known as the angle of vision. 
Take a rod ?s long as the width of the rails, say 
six feet. Hold it up before you a foot away and 
parallel to the line running through the two eyes. 



158 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

The rod will cross the whole field of vision. Let 
the rod be carried away from you, and you will 
find that it crosses less and less of the field of 
vision as the angle of vision decreases. When the 
rod is at the point where the rails seemed to meet, 
it will not seem to cover more than that one point. 
All this is to be taken into account; it is the law 
of vision. If you are not satisfied at having the 
vanishing point so near to you, provide yourself 
with a telescope. 

Another difficulty sometimes presented is this, 
that in the physical sciences a law may be held 
for a while as certain, and then be rejected as 
false. AVhat reliance can be placed upon the 
value of the second, even contradictory, law that 
has been substituted in its place? Witness the 
belief through ages of the Ptolemaic assertion 
that the sun revolved around the earth. With 
regard to theories in the natural sciences, this is 
to be said in general: We must remember that 
they are theories and that they are to be held 
only as theories. As theories they are always on 
trial. With regard to Ptolemy's assumption, we 
must know that it was never undisputed. But for 
working purposes it served the astronomer to 
assume that the sun moved around the earth. 
His calculations were made longer in many cases ; 
but, in many other cases, they Avere made shorter 
than they would have been upon the now accepted 
fact that the earth moves around the sun. We 
must always be cautious about theories. When 



ERROR. 159 

that which is only theory is laid down and upheld 
as certain and ascertained law (a thing that hap- 
pens too often today with regard to geological 
and archeological theories) the error in ninety- 
nine instances out of the hundred is one of pre- 
sumption ; it is an error starting in the will which 
is moved by the vanity usually found close upon 
the heels of superficial knowledge. It is only an 
illustration of the old saw, that a little knowledge 
is a dangerous thing. 

85. An Idealist Difficulty. The one really great 
difficulty which the idealistic or theoretic sceptic 
proposes to himself and in face of which, as some- 
thing impassable, he begins to build up his theories 
of idealism, is this : he does not see how the mind 
can possess the outer world without going out of 
itself — a thing which the mind certainly cannot 
do. He seems to talk of the mind and the object 
as of a gun and a target. When we say that the 
gun has hit the target we mean that a projectile 
has gone from the gun to the target. Similarly, 
the idealist would seem to imply or conclude that 
when we say that the mind apprehends an exter- 
nal object distinct from itself, we mean that the 
mind goes out to seize upon the object : and as he 
does not find this strange circumstance in his ex- 
perience, he is content to deny the true objectivity 
of knowledge. If he would but admit in theory, 
as he does in practice for very life 's sake, and as 
he should do in theory to have his theory of con- 



160 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

sciousness consistent, — if he would but recognize 
his own experience, w^hich is that of mankind, that 
the outer object stimulates the animated organ 
and that this organ is animated by the principle 
of life (the same principle that sees by the aid oi 
the eye as it grasps by the aid of the hand and 
perceives its own thought), he would have no dif- 
ficulty. Of course your mind cannot make an e..- 
cursion away out to the planet Jupiter; neither 
can the great planet with all his satellites come 
right into your eye. The senses are, as it were, 
so many living doors at which the outer' world of 
matter knocks, so to say, for admission into the 
realm of knowledge without going in itself, anu 
through which, we, thus wakened to the demand, 
stretch forth to the object outside and possess it 
by knowledge without going out ourselves. When 
the landscape projects itself upon the retina and 
we turn the eyes to give every detail the best op- 
portunity to present its individual petition to be 
known, the landscape does not enter the power of 
vision, nor does the power of vision go out to the 
object. The object and the power meet, so to say, 
half way. Consciousness is wakened in the modi- 
fication of the living organism. In that wakening 
the object becomes sufficiently present; and, 
through what takes place in the modification of 
the organism and the wakening of consciousness, 
the knowing power seizes the outer object at once 
in knowledge. Take an illustration from the work 
of the camera — though no illustration is the true 



ERROR. 



161 



counterpart of that which it is intended to illus- 
trate. There is a picture outside, and there is a 
sensitized plate inside. The light-rays work their 
way tlirough the lenses and are caught on the sen- 
sitized plate within. Suppose the camera to be a 
]iving thing, and the lenses and the plate to be its 
visual organ, — what happens! The visual power 
is- feimply directed along the lines of the light-rays 
as to something outside. In the power of sight i'n 
man there is a real living plate, the retina, which 
is a part of the man. It does not, like the plate 
which we call ^^ sensitized,'' catch a dead image. 
But the living spirit which animates, vivifies, the 
organ, cognizes the variations of brightness and 
shade and color, — directing itself out along the 
line of the rays. It cognizes the individual pic- 
ture, and with its recuperative capacity, it washes 
away the picture so soon as the object is gone; 
but it has stored up the picture in memory and it 
has universalized it in the idea. There is simply 
a result. That result is knowledge. That the 
object has something to do in the process, I Imow; 
"for I can close my eyes and oppose to its entrance 
an impenetrable wall of exclusion. The outward 
material object has efficiency as a real cause to 
put the organ of perception into the state re- 
quired for the perceptive act. To deny this is to 
deny the very principle of causality; and to d'^ny 
the principle of causality is to land oneself in 
absolute scepticism. • > 



162 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

To refer again to the number of the senses, the 
ancient division into five is sufficient for ns in this 
treatise on the general truth of thought. Should 
we possibly discover a new sense whose work we 
have been crediting to one of the five, such dis- 
covery would be but the most powerful confirma- 
tion of all that we have been saying; it would 
show that the physical laws of human nature had 
been regularly executed and that sense-perception 
had been exercised in spite of the much or the 
little that we knew about it. Such discovery would 
only corroborate the truth, that by those very 
physical laws of human nature the human person 
takes possession, by knowledge, of the outer world 
with the same necessity and spontaneity that ac- 
company the conscious recognition of the inner 
thing of thought and the existence of self; that 
there exists in man for the perception of the ma- 
terial non-ego the same natural fitness which he 
possesses for the perception of the ego and its 
modifications, and that the two perceptions are 
performed with the same ease and security. As 
we have previously noted, if only the same reflec- 
tion be made upon self perceiving the outer world 
that is made upon self thinking the inner thought, 
it will be seen that there is the same testimony in 
the conscious self for the existence of matter as 
for the existence of mind. The idealist or the 
agnostic sceptic cannot appeal, for the reality of 
his thought or what he may choose to call his state 
of consciousness, to ami:hing which will not serve 



ERROR. 163 

as an equally valid testimony for the reality of 
the outer world which is reached by sense-per- 
ception. 



CHAPTER XIII. CRITERION AND 
EVIDENCE. 

The Word, Criterion — Some Answers — Evidence — Des- 
cartes and Reid — Objective Truth — The Word, Evi- 
dence — Evidence: Immediate and Mediate; Intrinsic 
and Extrinsic — The Beginnings of Knowledge. 

86. The Word, Criterion. A criterion, {kpltt^plov) 
is a standard by which to judge {Kpiveiv). We 
speak here of the criterion of logical truth, of the 
standard by which to test the representative value 
of a given judgment. Is this, my judgment, a 
true judgment? If so, why! How do I know 
that it is true? In assigning a reason, I will, at 
once, say that I have seen, heard, understood, 
etc., mentioning one or another perceptive act 
according to the peculiar subject-matter of the 
judgment in question. Thus, I appeal to the ver- 
acity of the various cognitive faculties. I appeal 
to their testimony, which I hold to be worthy of 
trust, as to a test, a standard. I thus admit the 
fact of a criterion, in the physically necessary 
truthfulness of the perceptive faculties. But the 
question presents itself: in each of these cases 
and in similar cases, is there an assignable reason 
beyond? What is the final reason, the final cri- 

164 



CRITEKION AND EVIDENCE. 165 

terion in each case? And then another question 
presents itself : is the final reason the same in all 
cases ? Is there a final or ultimate criterion which 
is also universal? Is there one final universal 
basis for certitude T one final test to which we 
must appeal in all cases and beyond which there 
is no appeal? 

Is there one universal and ultimate criterion, 
and if there be, what is it ? The answer is a very 
simple one, indeed. Yet the very simplicity of 
the answer has made the question a puzzling one 
to philosophers. We must necessarily meet here 
the same difficulties that are encountered in every 
question concerning knowledge when one pre- 
sumes to inquire beyond the limits of inquiry, 
that is, beyond the limits of immediate evidence. 
The criterion must be in the judgment itself or 
outside of the judgment. If it be outside of the 
judgment or mental act to be tested, it will be 
either in the particular objective truth of which 
we are judging or it will be somewhere else. 

87. Some Answers. All pure idealists put the 
criterion in the subject thinking. For, they hold 
that knowledge comes from within ; and thus they 
are forced to appeal to the thought itself for what- 
ever value they may wish to give to it. 

The traditionalists, for whose doctrine w6 
inay signalize De Lamennais (1782-1854; Essai 
sur ^indifference) as the modern exponent, say 
that the final criterion is outside-authority. De 



166 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

Laiiiennais, affirming a primitive revelation of 
truth to the human race, contends that this 
truth has passed down from generation to gen- 
eration; and that the ultimate criterion of truth 
and of certitude can thus be nothing else than 
the authority of the human race manifested by 
the general consent of mankind. It is easy to see 
that the authority of all men existing at a given 
period could not be used as a criterion : for what 
lifetime would suffice to take the testimony of 
all men on a single question! We shall allow him, 
then, to mean the testimony of the majority of 
men. But neither could this be a criterion for us ; 
since, were we obliged to appeal to the majority 
of men for the certification of but half a dozen 
acts of knowledge, we should be landed in utter 
scepticism — such an appeal being an impossibil- 
ity. 

Blind instinct is sometimes advanced as the ul- 
timate criterion. We are conscious that we are 
forced to believe, it is said, and there we must 
stop all inquiry. But we cannot take blind in- 
stinct for a last criterion. We cannot appeal to 
it for the reality of objective truth. Such a cri- 
terion would lead us to the Kantian dogma that 
knowledge comes out of the mind and not into it. 
It would, moreover, reduce us eventually to a 
blind scepticism, allowing us to affirm no objec- 
tive reality with reason. The fact of the blind 
instinct would have to be affirmed by another 
movement of the blind instinct; and so on in- 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 167 

deliiiitel}^ The holding of this criterion has been 
ascribed to Thomas Reid and the Scottish school. 
But whatever the Scottish philosophers may have 
written, we believe they did not intend to hold to 
this as the ultimate criterion. We shall have a 
word to say about them later on. 

The sentimentalists, with J. J. Rousseau, say 
that the ultimate criterion is mere feeling. This 
has all the difficulties of the preceding. It does 
not certify the reality of the object. And, besides, 
it makes certitude a very uncertain thing, change- 
able regarding the same thing with every chang- 
ing mood. As a criterion, it is characteristic of 
the sceptical school which advocates it. It allows 
room for a denial of everything according to the 
mood of the hour, and, at the same time, affords a 
specious pretext for the admissions which the 
sceptic is obliged to make when he lives amongst 
men. 

We place the ultimate criterion in the object, 
in the objective truth upon which judgment is 
passed. What we mean by this we shall endeavor 
to make plain in the following number. Under- 
stand, first, that we are asserting a criterion for 
every kind of judgment, the analytic and the syn- 
thetic, the universal, the particular, and the sin- 
gular. Be the judgment what you will, — ^^That 
field is green," '* Parallel lines always remain at 
the same distance from one another," etc., the 
criterion will be ever the same : objective evi- 
dence. 



168 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

88. Evidence. Understand well where the 
great difficulty lies. It lies in this: in deciding 
whether, for the determination of the truth of a 
judgment and of the motive of our firm adher- 
ence to it, we are to rest in the clearness of the 
judgment itself, or w^hether we are to make an 
appeal to the objective truth enunciated by the 
judgment. The force of the difficulty will mani- 
fest itself as we proceed. We are here at the 
last issue of philosophy. Perhaps some examples 
may enable us to understand a very fundamental 
truth which many have failed to recognize by 
reason of its most patent simplicity. 

You are seated by the window with a friend; 
and there is a plant upon the sill. As you look 
out you form in your mind the following judg- 
ment: '^That rose is red." You then give ex- 
pression to your judgment in words. But, a mo- 
ment later, w^hilst you are about to turn your 
attention to some pictures in your hand, you be- 
gin to doubt the truth of the judgment you have 
just made, or, your friend calls its truth in ques- 
tion. What do you do to settle your own doubt, 
or, if you have no doubt, what test for the cor^ 
rectness of your judgment do you oifer to the 
one who has contradicted your assertion? You 
appeal to the object; and you require your friend 
to do the same. You look again at the object,- 
and you request him to look again at the object. 
You and your friend do not merely close your 
eyes and appeal to the judgments you have 



CRITEKION AND EVIDEITCE. 169 

formed. But what does this mean practically? 
It means that neither of you expects to find in 
the judgment itself the test of the truth of the 
judgment. Each one of you goes to the object for 
the test, for the Criterion. That which you ex- 
pect to find in the object is the ohjective-shining- 
oiit-of-the-truth, which you accept as the final test 
of the correctness of your subjective expression, 
of your judgment. If the judgment happened to 
have been made upon a passing object which has 
ceased to be present, you will have to appeal as 
well as you can to memory. But how will you 
appeal to memory? You will not appeal to the 
mere judgment or enunciation as it remains in 
the memory; but you will appeal to the image 
of the rose and its color, as these are objects of 
the memory and imagination. 

Suppose, again, that you were to find a person 
who w^as laboring under an hallucination of vision 
and who professed to see something which was 
not present— what would you do, what final 
method would you adopt, to convince him of his 
error! Would you ask him to appeal to some- 
thing subjective, to that erroneous judgment 
which he has already formed? No, you would 
recognize the utter futility of such appeal. You 
would try to discover some way of making him 
apply to the object. You would invite him to try 
the test of touch upon the supposed object. And 
what does this signify to our present purpose? 



170 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

It signifies that you recognize the criterion to b 
something objective and not subjective. 

It may be retorted that we are here appealing 
to something purely subjective, since the sensa- 
tion of touch is purely subjective. Yes; in its 
individual entity as an act, not only the sensation 
of touch, but the sensation of vision and every 
other sensation is purely subjective. That is to 
say, it belongs to you as subject perceiving. If 
it were not thus purely subjective, that is, alto- 
gether in you, you could not claim it as entirely 
your sensation. But consider what is implied in 
a sensation and in the judgment accompanying or 
following. Every perceptive act is a subjective 
modification or mood. This mood is an utterance, 
a declaration of the existence of something which 
is not the mood itself. The mood, thus, as an ut- 
terance, is relative. It is of its value as relative 
that there is question here. To discover this, you 
must go to the term of the relation, to the object 
which is referred to, which is declared. 

Once more: in making the test of a judgment, 
you always repeat the judgment. But you do 
not merely repeat the declaration as you find it 
in your mind. You repeat the whole process : you 
go through all the conditions necessary for the 
original forming of the judgment. One of these 
original conditions is always that the power be 
put in communication with the object. Why do 
you put the power in communication with the ob- 
ject? To see if the power will be forced to render 



I 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 171 

the verdict, to see if the same testimony will be 
wrmig from it. By what? By the inevitable 
light with which truth is illumined, and whereby 
it coerces the faculty to its recognition. This 
power which truth possesses by reason of its own 
light and whereby it forces its representation 
upon, the vital faculty is called its evidence. This 
is objective and cannot be subjective; for it is the 
shining of the truth in its own light. 

There are some who are ready to quibble here, 
saying that the criterion is the evidence as per- 
ceived; but, that, the perceiving is something en- 
tirely subjective; and that, hence, the criterion 
must in the end be regarded as subjective. This 
is a sophism. We have been showing how the 
search for the general or universal criterion of 
logical truth must lead us ultimately to the evi- 
dence of the objective truth, to something out- 
side of the faculty. Now if you take up any par- 
ticular, concrete judgment, or act of knowledge, 
will the criterion be the evidence as perceived! 
Certainly, it will be the evidence as perceived; 
but the evidence is perceived as objective, not as 
subjective. Objectivity of truth is the condition 
sine qua non of the act of judgment; and objec- 
tivity of the evidence of that truth is the final 
formality to which we must have recourse to test 
the truth of the act of judgment, the truth of 
thought. 

Sometimes we find evidence distinguished into 
objective and subjective ; by objective evidence is 



172 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

meant that of which we have just spoken and 
which we shall term '^evidence'' without any 
qualification; by subjective evidence is meant the 
corresponding clearness and distinctness in the 
judgment passed. But evidence belongs to ob- 
ject ; and not to intellect as expressing object. It 
is important that we should hold to this applica- 
tion of the term ; — and we lay stress upon it as we 
laid stress upon the necessity of limiting the term, 
certitude, to the state of the mind and of not 
transferring it to the object. It is I who am cer- 
tain, it is I who have certitude; it is the object 
which is evident. 

89. Descartes and Reid. Descartes tried vainly 
to work out a complete theory of the process and 
progress of knowledge and of certitude on the 
basis of a fundamental truth, the conviction, the 
affirmation and acceptance of which he found in- 
evitable, when all else had been called into doubt. 
This truth was the fact of his own thought, which 
he expressed in the jud.2:ment, '^ego cogito'' — I 
think. But the last, the ultimate motive which he 
assigns for certitude in this declaration, is the 
*^ clear and distinct perception '' he has of that 
thinking ego. 

Though the writings cf Descartes are certainly 
very incoherent and very ambiguous whenever 
he touches this question, we should be pleased to 
be able to profit by his ambiguity for the sake of 
interpreting him as being in accord with rather 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 173 

than in opposition to the mind of humanity. But 
explain him as we will, we find him always escap- 
ing us and retrenching himself in the idea as his 
last security for the assertion of objective reality. 
When we say that the last criterion cannot be 
subjective, the term subjective applies to the par- 
ticular act of judgment made; and we mean that 
the particular act of judgment cannot be taken 
as the ultimate basis of certitude regarding the 
object upon which the judgment is passed. Your 
existence, your self, your thought, your feelings 
are certainly subjective to you. But they are all 
objective, object, to your perception of them and 
to your judgment passed upon them. Now, if 
we follow Descartes down through all his doubts, 
and doubts of doubts, to the point where he finds 
himself at a primary fact of which he feels he 
cannot doubt, the fact of self thinking, upon 
which he pronounces the judgment ^' I think,'' we 
see plainly that he is making the doubting or 
thinking ego the object of a second perception or 
judgment in which he declares ^*I think." Had 
he recognized here that the motive of this declara- 
tion was the evidence of the thinking ego which 
presented itself as object to the second or reflex 
perception, he might have found his way back to 
reality. Instead of doing this he turns to the 
second or reflex mental act to seek therein a 
** clear and distinct perception" of the original 
thinking ego taken as object. Now, who is there 
who does not see that for the perception of this 



174 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

^* clear and distinct perception" in the second act 
there is required a third mental act! But is the 
third mental act reliable? Yes; if it contains a 
^^ clear and distinct perception'' of the other 
^^ clear and distinct perception." How shall we 
know this! By making it the object of a fourth 
mental act. Thus we are led farther and farther 
away from objective reality deep into the depths 
of idealistic reflection. Descartes, in his attempt 
at an explanation, is perpetually appealing to the 
true criterion, the evidence of the object and the 
objective truth ; and by his confusion of terms 
he forces us to conclude that he had not a very 
^^ clear and distinct idea" of his own profound 
secret. 

The Scottish school of philosophy, of which we 
may regard Thomas Reid as the proper exponent, 
has been charged with making the sensus com- 
munis (the general and uniform consent of the 
human race) the court of appeal for truth and 
certitude, to the extent that when we question the 
authority of this court we are thrown back upon 
the blind instinct of men to believe. As for the 
keen Scottish philosophers, we should find it dif- 
ficult to class them as a school, since they differ 
so widely on very essential points. But concern- 
ing the matter here in question we shall say that 
they spent so much time in searching for and 
classifying those fundamental truths universally 
accepted by men, that they failed to investigate 
to its depths the basis of this acceptance. Of 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 175 

course, universal acceptance is a criterion beyond 
which we need not go to feel secure in certain 
judgments that regard the necessities of human 
life and action. But it is not a universal nor an 
ultimate criterion. In his printed w^orks Eeid 
does style it an ultimate criterion; and by his 
printed works is he judged in critical philosophy. 
But it is pleasant to note that in manuscripts still 
extant Eeid makes the following declaration: 
*' Evidence is the sole and ultimate ground of 
belief, and self-evidence is the strongest possible 
ground of belief, and he who desires reason for 
believing what is self-evident knows not what he 
means.''* Studying the mind of writers and not 
merely random declarations scattered through 
their printed works, we believe that both Reid 
and Stewart put the criterion where it ought to 
be, in evidence. 

90. Objective Truth. We have said that there 
may be many criteria of truth or, what comes to 
the same, many motives of certitude. I may be 
set at rest by the testimony of my own eyes, by the 
relation of a friend, by a document, by an argu- 
ment, etc. But we have, here, been looking for 
a last reason, a last resort, which will be the same 
in every investigation, when we go on asking why, 
why, why. This last resort, we have seen, will be 
the evidence of the objective truth. Attention is 
called once more, and separately, to the meaning 

*(Dr, James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, citing from manu- 
scripts of Reid in the possession of Francis Esmond.) 



176 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

of the expression, objective truth. By objectiv 
truth we mean any fact or principle whichj ^ 
known or can be known. Even the act by whj;^' 
said fact or principle is known can become ^ j^^ 
tive truth with reference to another act of know- 
ing. Whatever there may be which will not imply 
contradiction in its statement, be it abstract priur 
ciple ; be it concrete fact, past, present or futu"* . , 
or neither abstract principle nor fact that was or 
will be, but only a mere possibility that shall 
never be realized but is only conceivable as not in- 
volving a contradiction in itself; — all this is in- 
cluded in the expression, objective truth. 

Whatever is knowable, in so far as it is know- 
able, does, by the fact that it is knowable, present 
itself in its character of knowable when it is en- 
countered by a knowing power which is adequate 
to the perception of the peculiar know^ability pre- 
sented. This capability in the knowable, in the 
objective truth, of presenting itself, we have 
called its evidence. The act of self-presentation 
cannot be exercised by every objective truth in 
reference to every knowing power. Linear meas- 
ure cannot present itself as such to hearing. The 
harmony of a musical chord cannot present itself 
as such to toLich. Odor cannot present itself to 
vision. The truth that parallel lines produced 
will never meet, cannot present itself to taste. 
But sound can present itself for perception to 
hearing ; and linear measure can present itself to 
be perceived by sight and touch. , 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 177 

91. The Word, Evidence. Evidence is the shin- 
-1. J of the truth in its own light ; it is the neces- 
$k^ - y visibility of the truth. It will be noticed that 
tix^, 'Ords, evidence, shining, light, visibility, are 
all taken from what belongs to the visible and to 
the power of perceptibility by vision. So won- 
derful a part does sight play in perception as a 
v."/ql matter in the economy of human life, that 
! we come to use the word see for every kind of 
perception. We say that we see how justice is a 
virtue : but we do not see it, we understand it 
by the perception of the intellect. We are told 
that one of the voices in a quartette is false ; and, 
for proof, we are told to wait until the quartette 
) sings — and we shall see. In this case see is used 
■: instead of /^ear. We use it also for taste : ^^You 
(•do not know the taste of the strawberry! No! 
•Well, take this and see!'' Thus we employ the 
5 word, see, to express every kind of perception; 
fiand we also transfer the words that relate to 
I" vision, to express like relations of other kinds of 
I' perception. This is what happens with the words, 
evidence and evident. Evident (evidens) and 
! evidence (evidentia) are from the Latin e-videre, 
Ho see out of. A thing is evident when it is seen 
out of (out from) itself. Evidence is the capacity 
a thing has to be seen out of itself, by itself, from 
itself. So, whatever presents itself — be it fact, 
principle, possibility or argument — whatever pre- 
sents itself to any knowing power so as to be per- 
ceived by that knowing power, is said to be evi- 



178 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

dent to that knowing power ; and it is perceivable 
by reason of its evidence which is its ability to 
present itself for cognition to the knowing power 
that is adapted to the perception of it. 

92. Evidence: Immediate and Mediate: Intrin- 
sic and Extrinsic. A truth is said to be immedi- 
ately evident w^hen it is perceptible directly in its 
own evidence without the medium of the evidence 
of other truths to make it perceptible. Thus we 
can have immediate evidence of contingent truths, 
such as, that a fire which is close to us is warm, or, 
that one of two lines is shorter than the other; 
and we have immediate evidence of certain gen- 
eral analytic truths, as, that parallel lines pro- 
duced do not meet. But when a truth requires the 
medium of the evidence of another truth to make 
itself perceptible, its evidence is said to be medi- 
ate. Thus we may not be able to see which of 
two lines is the longer, but by the medium of a 
movable measure w^e shall discover it very read- 
ily. The evidence of a truth which we arrive at 
only through argument, that is to say, the evi- 
dence of a conclusion, is mediate; it is perceived 
by means of the. light that is thrown upon it by the 
evidence of the premisses. 

Attention is called to the meaning of the word 
"proof. It is said very justly that in philosophy 
we must admit nothing without proof. Now, as 
** proof '' is very widely used in the sense of ** ar- 
gument,'' an inexperienced person may be caught 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 179 

in the disastrous fallacy that nothing is to be ad- 
mitted without being ^Droved by an argument. If 
this were so, we should never be able to establish 
the existence of anything, whether of self or of 
not-self. Be it remembered that proof is the same 
as evidence; and as evidence is immediate and 
mediate, so also is proof immediate and mediate. 
It is not necessary to prove everything by argu- 
mentation, by mediate evidence. There is a bet- 
ter because a speedier proof than argumentation, 
namely, immediate evidence. Immediate certifi- 
cation is of a higher order than mediate certifica- 
tion and should be used when it can be had. Why 
do Ave agree to an argument? Because its con- 
clusion is evident to us as seen through the prem- 
isses. Why, then, may we not agree to a truth 
which is evident to us when we perceive it in itself 
without looking at it through premisses'? The 
absurdity of rejecting certain truths which we 
can perceive by their immediate evidence only, 
will appear from the following illustration. With 
the aid of glasses, single, double, triple, I recog- 
nize some object that is beyond the range of un- 
aided vision. My friend who is standing beside 
me can also with the aid of glasses recognize the 
same object. But my friend, himself ! Is he here 
beside me? I take the distance glasses, and with 
them I am unable to see him. He, too, tries the 
glasses, and with them he cannot see me. With- 
out the glasses we see one another. But because 
we cannot do so with the glasses which are in- 



180 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

tended for distance, we agree each to deny the 
presence of the other. Those who wish to prove 
everything by means of an argumentation act in 
this manner. Self-evident truth they will not ad- 
mit, just because it is self-evident, just because it 
is so close and apparent that it will not bear the 
interposition of the medium, of an argument. 
Every form of scepticism, plenary and partial, is 
guilty in this particular: it seeks to wedge an 
argument in between the power and the object, 
even when the power and the object are separated 
by nothing more than the geometrical line — which 
has no breadth; and to w^edge it in, forsooth, in 
order to connect the power with the object. 

Evidence is also spoken of as intrinsic and as 
extrinsic. It is said to be intrinsic when the truth 
is perceived or perceivable in itself whether im- 
mediately or mediately. Immediate evidence is, 
therefore, always intrinsic because the connection 
of subject and predicate in the truth that is im- 
mediately evident is perceivable from the known 
nature of said subject and predicate. The evi- 
dence of a conclusion in an argument may also be 
intrinsic although mediate, for the truth of the 
conclusion is made manifest in the evidence of 
what is knowm regarding the subject and predi- 
cate; it is made manifest in the evidence of the 
premisses, and the premisses are nothing more 
than the development of the subiect and predi^ 
cate of the conclusion. Now, if the evidence of 
both premisses be intrinsic, the evidence of the 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 181 

conclusion will likewise be intrinsic, though 
mediate. What, then, is extrinsic evidence! We 
often hold to truths which are not evident to us 
in themselves whether immediately or through the 
medium of a demonstration. We hold to them on 
account of the evidence of an outside truth which, 
whilst linking together predicate and subject, still 
does not put before us the evidence of the bond. 
This is what happens in our assent to all truths 
which we accept solely on the word, on the au- 
thority of our fellow-man. We have no evidence 
of these truths in themselves; but we have evi- 
dence of the existence of the testimony and evi- 
dence of the value of the testimony on the matter 
in question. Such truths are not evident in them- 
selves. They are evidently credible. The facts of 
history which we accept, we accexjt not upon their 
own evidence, but upon the evidence of their 
credibility. This is something outside of the con- 
nection existing between the subject and predi- 
cate of the fact stated, and is called extrinsic evi- 
dence. We shall devote a special chapter to the 
value of historical testimony. 

93. The Beginnings of Knowledge. In our 

search for the beginnings and groundwork of 
knowledge we cannot go beyond evidence and the 
nature of our knowing faculties which are necessi- 
tated to the admission of evidence duly presented. 
It may be in place for us to call attention to 
three primary truths, the recognition of which is 



182 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

implied in every act of knowledge. These three 
truths are commonly styled the first fact, the first 
condition, the first principle. They are evident 
in themselves, and so primary that they cannot be 
made the subject of a direct demonstration. 

The first fact is the fact of the existence of self. 

The first condition is that of the possibility of 
knowledge. The acceptance of this condition is 
involved in every act of knowledge and lies at the 
base of human life and action. 

The first principle is the ^* principle of contra- 
diction" which stands guard over certitude in 
every mental declaration. This principle may be 
formulated in various ways. Sometimes it is an- 
nounced as follows: ^^A thing cannot both be 
and not be at the same time;" or ^'The same 
thing cannot both exist and not exist at the same 
time. ' ' It may be more fully stated thus : ' ' The 
same cannot be (truthfully) affirmed and denied 
(cannot be true and false) simultaneously under 
the same respect." Thus stated, the principle 
covers the whole range of truths, the concrete and 
the contingent as well as the abstract and the 
necessary. The admission of this principle is a 
necessity to thought. You cannot deny it and 
hold to your denial. For, if you do, you proclaim 
the principle, namely, that w^hat you have denied 
cannot be affirmed. 

Tt would not be easy, nay, it would be impos- 
sible to say how these three, the cognizance of the 
condition, the acceptance of the first fact, the 



CRITERION AND EVIDENCE. 183 

mental grasp of the first principle, follow one 
another or coalesce in the primitive acts of per- 
ception. To understand this we should have to 
secure a child's account of what happened when it 
first began to know. We can see — now that we 
are forced to the admission of the condition by 
the inevitable impulse of the mind to know — that 
the first fact always shines with its own unmis- 
takable evidence in every conscious act; and that 
the first principle is stamped with its application 
upon every truth according as such truth is 
known in its contingent or necessary character. 
This we can see looking back at the distant 
courses through which our life-thought has 
cleaved its way; but we are now so far from the 
starting point to which we shall not return, that 
the record of the first flight of thought shall never 
be written in the books of men. 



CHAPTER XIV. HUMAN TESTIMONY 
AND BELIEF. 

Some Terms — Witness, Testimony, Belief, Authority — 
Testimony: Divine and Human; Doctrinal and His 
torical — Witness: Immediate and Mediate — Belief 
and Life — Dogmatic Testimony — Sensus Communis 
— Historical Testimony — Conditions Postulated — - 
Argument in Brief — Contemporary Events — Past 
Events — Oral Tradition — Writing — Monuments ^— 
Note. 

94. Some Terms. There is a simple fact that 
plays a marvellous part in the planting and the 
growth of human knowledge. It is, that man ac- 
cepts the testimony of man. If all men were to 
refuse absolutely and in all cases to believe upon 
the testimony of others, society would be an im- 
possibility. Thus, for the human race, testimony 
is raised to the dignity of a criterion whereby to 
pass sentence upon objective truths concerning 
which those who accept the testimony either can- 
not or shall not have any immediate experience. 
The truth is simply believed upon the authority 
of the witness giving testimony. 

A Witness is one who communicates his knowl- 
edge. 

184 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 185 

Testimony is the actual communication of that 
knowledge. 

Belief is the assent given to testimony. 

Authority is the sum of motives which the testi- 
mony of a witness possesses to urge assent. 
These motives are, evidence of logical and moral 
truth on the part of the witness. To believe him 
we must have evidence of his knowledge and ve- 
racity; evidence that he is not deceived himself, 
nor deceiving us. Thus, we do not believe on the 
evidence of the truth proposed. We do not per- 
ceive its evidence. The truth proposed is the 
matter, the material object of our faith or belief; 
but the formal object of our belief, that, namely, 
w^hich we assent to upon its own evidence, is the 
knowledge and veracity of the witnesses, whether 
mediate or immediate. We believe upon the evi- 
dence of the credibility of the w^itnesses. This 
credibility of the witnesses attached to the objec- 
tive truth, stands to us extrinsically for the evi- 
dence of the truth testified to. 

In this treatise we are not speaking of the case 
w^here witness, testimony and authority are divine 
and where by divine faith or belief we accept 
supernatural revelation. We are speaking of 
purely human testimony and of human belief 
upon the authority of the human witness. 

The object of this human testimony, the truth 
testified to, may be doctrinal, as a principle of 
science proposed for acceptance by belief; or it 



186 THE TRUTH <JF THOUGHT. | 

may be what we call in the strictest sense an 
historical fact. However, all testimony is, prac- 
tically, historical. For, even when it proposes to 
us a principle, it does not present to ns the evi- 
dence of that principle. If it did, we would accept 
the principle, not upon authority, but upon its own 
evidence. So that a philosophical or scientific 
principle of any kind may be reckoned under the 
general heading of facts that can be testified to. 

Facts are spoken of as 

Universal: all physical and metaphysical laws; 

Permanent: originating at some time past, re- 
spectably distant, and extending continuously to 
the present; as, the existence of London; 

Transient: not having a continuous or perma- 
nent existence, as, the earthquake at Constanti- 
nople in 1892 ; 

Periodic: recurring at intervals, whether regu- 
larly, like the return of summer, as the result of 
the action of physical laws, or otherwise; 

Contemporary: happening within the experi- 
ence of a great part of the men now living ; 

Recent: The term recent takes its signification 
from the character of the events to which it is 
applied. A recent fact in the movement of the 
world's history might be a century distant. The 
family affairs that served for last winter's gos- 
sip in the village are no longer counted as recent. 

Remote: The term, remote, is also variable, — 
events being regarded as more or less remote, 




HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 187 



ifaccording to the character of the chronicle into 
which they enter. 

The above division is not, nor is it intended to 
be a logical division. The aim of this chapter is 
j covered fnlly by the division of the object of tes- 
timony and belief into scientific principles and his- 
dorical events — taking the word, historical, in its 
.common acceptation. These historical events can 
be again divided into present and past events. 
IPresent events will include the contemporary. 
tPast events will be recent and remote. 

A witness, as has been said, is one who commu- 

inicates his knowledge, — one who gives testimony. 

A witness may be immediate or mediate. An 

immediate witness is one who has had personal 

experience of the fact to which he testifies. Snch 

wdtness is commonly called an eye-ivitnesSy since 

most of the historical facts of which one can have 

personal experience are thos-e which come nnder 

khe eye. A mediate witness is one who relates 

upon the testimony of another. That is to say, he 

■testifies to the testimony of another. A chain of 

such witnesses may reach down into the distant 

jpast, connecting the listener or reader of today 

; with the immediate witness and the remote event. 

( Mediate witnesses wall thus be either contem- 

; porary with the remote event, or qiiasi-contem- 

:,porary (living shortly after it) or remote from 

it; and they will be the more remote in propor- 

, tion as the event recedes from them into the past 

and they themselves approach to the present time. 



188 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. ■ 

Mediate witnesses who have the matter by hearsay- 
are called auricular witnesses. 

The knowledge of past events may be trans- 
mitted by oral tradition, by documents, by monu- 
ments. 

Oral tradition, or the handing down by word of 
mouth, implies an uninterrupted series of wit- 
nesses beginning with the immediate witness and 
reaching to the present time. Each mediate wit- 
ness in the series narrates to a successor what 
he has received from a predecessor; the imme- 
diate witness, of course, gains his knowledge from 
personal experience. It may be that it is impos- 
sible to complete the series so as to bring in the 
immediate witness, — the nearest connection with 
the event being its evident unquestioned public 
notoriety at the time or about the time when it 
is reported to have taken place. 

A Document is any kind of writing which can 
be advanced as testifying to an event. A docu- 
ment thus becomes the testimony of a witness. 
When the document is a consecutive record which 
can be authenticated, it is called history. 

Monuments embrace all those more enduring 
w^orks of human art and industry, the very exist- 
ence of which leads us necessarily to argue to the 
reality of certain events with which they must 
have been connected. Temples, statues, coins, 
medals, etc., all come under the head of monu- 
ments. 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 189 

95. Belief and Life. There is no one who does 
not see the great importance, nay, the necessity 
of human belief in the economy of human life. 
The human being comes into this world destitute 
of all experience, and is left during the period 
of infancy incapable of exercising the power of 
reason or of making personal investigations. 
Hence, all those truths the knowledge of which 
is necessary for the early years of life and which 
cannot be acquired by reason or experience, must 
be accepted by the child upon the authority of its 
elders. The number of these truths, both in the 
speculative and in the practical order, is very 
great; and in regard to all of them belief must 
go before experience and reason. 

And even when the days of childhood and youth 
are gone by and man finds himself in the full 
vigor of his intellectual power, there will still be 
many truths, useful and even necessary for the 
best or the essential conduct of his physical and 
moral life, of which truths, however, he will never 
be able to obtain a scientific knowledge, whether 
on account of the limitations of his genius, the 
lack of means and opportunity, or the press of 
duties. These truths he must accept, if he will 
not fly the circumstances of civilized life, on the 
testimony of other men in whom he puts his trust. 
This for scientific truths. And the necessity of 
accepting them by belief affects not merely the 
unlearned, but also men of scientific attainments. 
For, who is there that knows everything about all 



190 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

the sciences? Or who is there that can give the 
reason for the conclusions which he accepts and 
acts upon in the affairs of every day life! The 
crowds that pour out into the streets of the met- 
ropolis in the morning, and are hurried from one 
end of the city to the other on the electric cars, 
accept with an unhesitating belief that the power 
which is transporting them is what is called elec- 
tricity. They know nothing about electricity, noth- 
ing about the methods of its generation or dis- 
tribution or application. They simply associate 
some external fixtures, whose meaning is a riddle 
to them, with the general rumor ; and the general 
rumor is based upon the remote declaration of a 
few whose word has not been called in question. 
But belief is resorted to not merely by the un- 
learned. The electrician believes the mathema- 
tician, and the mathematician believes the astron- 
omer. The physician believes the lawyer ; and the 
lawyer believes the physician. The speculator be- 
lieves the telegraph operator ; and the philosopher 
believes the cook. In the higher sciences there is 
such an interdependence of one upon the other for 
data, that the expert in the one goes to the expert 
in the other as the child goes to its mother to have 
read to it the story which is put up in a wonderful 
alphabet which it cannot understand. And even 
in the scientific conclusions that we do arrive at 
by our own industry, we all know that it is the 
part of prudence to submit our work to another 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 191 

in whose skill we confide, to have pointed ont to 
us the errors we may have made. 

With regard to historical testimony in particu- 
lar, we may say that belief in it lies at the very 
base of society. Take away this belief, and the 
existing structure of civilization will crumble in a 
night. International relations which rest upon the 
records of the past will cease, and cannot be re- 
newed. The legal decisions inscribed yesterday 
will have no value tomorrow. Deeds, mortgages, 
wills and contracts will be worth no more than 
the paper on which they are written. All the con- 
clusions of the experimental sciences which are 
arrived at by induction and repose upon the data 
gathered during years and centuries, are swept 
away; and their application in the arts and in- 
dustries of humanity becomes unfounded experi- 
ment. Refuse to believe and you shall not know, 
when you travel, whether you are in Rome or 
London or St. Petersburg. The life we have 
chosen to live is then, we may well say, founded 
chiefly on belief. Has the belief itself an accept- 
able foundation? 

96. Dogmatic Testimony. Speaking in general, 
a mere assertion on the part of any person is not 
sufficient to warrant us in accepting the assertion 
as true. There may, indeed, be moral truth. The 
person may be speaking according to his convic- 
tion. But we may not have evidence that he him- 
self is not mistaken. This holds very particularly 



192 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

when there is question of scientific doctrine. The 
mere testimony of a promiscuous one hundred or 
one thousand persons on a scientific matter may 
be very well meant at the same time that it is 
very much mistaken. Thus, the dew is commonly 
said to fall and it is commonly believed to do so. 
If, however, one man, well known for his veracity 
and recognized by the scientific world as a master 
in his department, makes a positive declaration 
regarding the matter of his own specialty, it may 
be very imprudent, even from a practical point of 
view, to refuse to accept his word. His recognized 
Imowledge, the position he holds in the scientific 
world, the readiness with which his assertion, if 
incorrect, would be taken up by other men of skill 
and reputation equal to or superior to his, put it 
beyond a reasonable doubt that he would not risk 
an assertion of the kind without possessing cer- 
titude. I do not say that this holds for every 
assertion of every scientific man of eminence, but 
only for positive assertions upon matters strictly 
within the sphere of the specialist. For I know 
that there is nothing more affected now-a-days by 
certain writers who are renowned for their ex- 
periments upon matter, than the drawing of false 
conclusions and the making of false assertions 
outside of their matter. 

Since, then, we have to read scientific books, and 
are disposed to accept conclusions within the 
sphere of the writer, conclusions which we have 
neither the time nor the capacity to verify by in- 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 193 

duction or by deduction, it is well for us to know 
that the credibility of such books may be the more 
readily recognized 

a), in proportion as the subject matter is the 
more easily studied and hence offers the less occa- 
sion for error ; 

b), in proportion as prejudice is the less liable 
to enter into the writer's investigation or asser- 
tions ; 

c), in proportion as the writers on the subject 
in question are the more numerous and the more 
widely recognized as masters, and have been the 
more independent of one another in the investiga- 
tions whereby they have reached the same conclu- 
sions. 

Hence, we may more readily accept testimony 
in matters of the direct sciences than in matters 
of the reflex sciences. The evidence of credibility 
is much more easily discovered for a work on 
pure mathematics or on the experimental laws of 
physics than for a work on ideology or pure meta- 
physics. You will not hesitate at a book on optics, 
but you may well pause, to make your selection 
wisely, when you are looking for a work on the 
truth of thought. Turn back to our third chapter, 
the ^* Chapter of Discord." It may throw light 
upon what we are saying. 

Notwithstanding the influence which the sayings 
of the wise have upon individual and collective 
human life, it must be admitted that for the mass 
of humanity the scientific utterances of the learned 



194 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

afford at best only the strongest kind of probabil- 
ity, and hence can give ground for a very safe 
opinion, it may be, but not for strictly defined 
certitude. Still the probability may be so very 
great as to justify even a prudent man in accept- 
ing the utterance as a sufficiently secure basis for 
action in the material affairs of life. It is some- 
times possible, too, with the addition of a little 
personal experience, to raise the universal agree- 
ment of the learned upon a scientific conclusion to 
the dignity of a motive for real certitude. This 
will depend upon the matter of the science in ques- 
tion. In mathematical science, for instance, which 
is occupied with algebraic formulas, one may, after 
a very limited period of study, come to such knowl- 
edge of the character of the science and of the 
methods of its progress as to see the impossibility 
of an identical incorrect formula for a given solu- 
tion being arrived at independently by a thousand 
skillful mathematicians. The addition of his slight 
knowledge to the unanimous declaration of the 
wise will enable him to accept the formula with 
strict certitude. 

To summarize, therefore : 

In scientific matters certitude can never be 
based on the mere word of a man. 

Great regard, however, must always be had for 
the authority of the learned, especially when their 
consent is unanimous. 

Still, their unanimous consent cannot justify us 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 195 

ill rejecting what reason dictates to us to be evi- 
dent. 

Nevertheless, when reason seems to dictate to 
us, as evident, a conclusion that is in opposition 
to the unanimous consent of the learned, it is wise 
for us to be most willing to reconsider the motives 
of our assent, remembering that we ourselves may 
have made an error through haste or prejudice or 
on account of a narrow intellectual horizon to 
which we may have condemned ourselves by the 
limitations of our favorite pursuits. 

97. Sensus Communis or Common Consent. In 

connection with what we have just said comes the 
query : what is the value of the sensus communis, 
the common consent of mankind, as a motive for 
certitude 1 We have referred to this common con- 
sent more than once; and we have seemed to at- 
tach much weight to it. The common consent is a 
testimony. What is its value? Wliat authority 
has it to command my assent? Its authority, its 
power to exact the submission of my intellect to 
the fact testified to, will be in proportion to the 
evident veracity and knowledge of human kind tes- 
tifying. Presuming, here, the veracity of man- 
kind, what evidence can we have of the knowledge 
of mankind? Certainly, there is within us an in- 
clination, established by a long and wide reaching 
process of induction, to hesitate at rejecting the 
testimony of the race when there is no evidence 
of the incorrectness of that testimony. At the 



196 thp: truth of thought. 

same tinie, we may not forget what has happened, 
namely, that even during long centuries the human 
race did accept certain physical, astronomical and 
geographical statements Avhich the human race 
now rejects as incorrect. Our question, then, will 
come to this : is it ever possible for the sensus com- 
munis to be regarded as infallible? This is never 
possible if we look upon the common consent 
merely as a testimony. But if we consider the 
character of certain truths which are testified to, 
accepted, by common consent, the common consent 
is infallible in their regard. This, however, is not 
on account of the nature of the universality of the 
assent, but it is by reason of the nature of these 
certain truths, the knowledge of which has a direct 
bearing on the absolute needs of human life, indi- 
vidual, domestic and social. The knowledge of 
these truths being a necessity to human life, in- 
dividual and collective, they are perceived in pur- 
suance of a physical law which is just as unfailing 
as that by reason of which matter gravitates to 
matter. These truths are what are known as the 
first and immediate principles and the more im- 
mediate consequences deducible from the same. 
They are truths for the knowledge cf which we do 
not, indeed, require the testimony of the race, since 
they are all more or less easily discoverable by 
each one of us ; and the immediate first principles 
always, in fact, present themselves ivhen the time 
for their application arrives. Still, for the fore- 
Jcnowledge of such truths, and more particularly of 



HUMAI^ , TESTIMOl^Y AND BELIEF. 197 

those immediately consequent upon the first self- 
evident principles, who does not see that the com- 
mon consent, as indicated by the uniform action 
of humanity, is very valuable 1 For the mind is 
thus provided in advance with a code of axioms 
wherein it can find already formulated the solu- 
tion of a thousand life-problems that arise in the 
course of a day ; and thus the labor of discovery is 
replaced by the simpler task, the enjoyment, in- 
deed, of verification. 

98. Historical Testimony. It is the experience 
of all of us that we have been able to attain 
through belief on testimony to true certitude re- 
garding certain historical events. In some in- 
stances there was no possibility of immediate per- 
sonal experience, because the facts were past and 
transient. There were other instances where per- 
sonal experience of extant signs did come later. 
Yet it did not fortify our certitude : we saw only 
what we had expected to see. We had the satisfac- 
tion of experience: but our certitude would have 
remained unshaken without it. Again, we have be- 
lieved : and we have, perhaps, discovered that our 
belief was bestowed upon an unreliable testimony. 
With the practical knowledge, then, that historical 
testimony may be unreliable, why is it that we will 
sometimes cliilg to an historical event with the 
tenacity of certitude when we have nothing to 
base our certitude upon but testimony which, con- 
sidered in itself, is capable of leading us astray? 



198 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

The reason is this : circumstances may shed such 
light upon the testimony as to enable us to secure 
evidence of its credibility, evidence of the knowl- 
edge and veracity of the witnesses. 

Putting aside the matter of our own experience, 
the question we have to investigate, here, is a 
purely abstract one. We ask : Is there, within the 
possibilities, such a combination of circumstances 
as ivould warrant us in accepting without hesita- 
tion the testimony which witnesses mi^/i^ bear to 
an event past or present? This may seem to be fu- 
tile as a practical question, when we consider how 
the severest courts of inquiry that exist in human 
society send men to their death every day on the 
testimony of two witnesses, or without witnesses 
at all and simply on the strength of what seems 
to be a well woven web of circumstances. But we 
are not now discussing facts. We are occupied 
with possibilities. We are not presuming that any 
such combination as above mentioned has at any 
time existed, nor that it shall at any time exist. 
We are not presuming that we have evidence for 
the credibility of testimony on any one event, be 
it the existence of St. Sophia's at Constantinople 
or of St. Peter 's at Rome, the fact of the reign of 
Queen Victoria or of the four years' civil war in 
the United States. You may hesitate at them all 
now if you choose. We will ask you to judge for 
yourself when we shall have closed our investiga- 
tion. We stop at the possibilities. It is as if we 
were to ask the question : Is it possible to make 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 199 

the works of a serviceable watch out of aluminum? 
We have never seen a watch that had aluminum 
works. But we may arrive at our conclusion by 
studying the character of a watch and the prop- 
erties of aluminum. And even if our answer 
should be affirmative we need not assert that there 
will ever be a watch with wheels of aluminum. 

99. Conditions Postulated. Since we are work- 
ing in the possibilities, we have the privilege of 
postulating possible conditions. We shall, there- 
fore, for a trial, postulate the following condi- 
tions : 

1. The facts shall be such as appeal to the 
senses. It is of such facts that what we know as 
history is made up. 

2. There shall be persons, one or many as the 
case may require, who have the normal use of their 
senses, who are capable of perceiving the fact, 
and who testify that the fact has in some way, im- 
mediately or mediately, appealed to their senses. 

3. These persons shall be human beings and 
hence their actions shall be essentially character- 
ized in the same way as the actions of men of to- 
day. We note, particularly, that men act with 
free will. And yet we see that, with all their free- 
dom, they do, under given circumstances, pursue 
certain fixed methods of action, and this with such 
constancy, uniformity and universality as to leave 
no doubt that these methods are an outcome of hu- 
man nature itself. These methods are followed 



200 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

SO spontaneously and so unerringly that they are 
never deviated from unless by reason of some 
special design. The deviation is thns a noticeable 
thing, one that attracts attention and naturally in- 
cites men to seek for the hidden motive that has 
been considered proportionate to this deliberate 
departure from the recognized normal methods. 
These universal, constant methods have, by some 
writers, been termed moral laivs. The term is not 
aptly selected. For by moral laws we commonly 
understand the laws that bind the free will of 
man: the dictates of a superior imposing obliga- 
tion on the free human will. The moral law, hence, 
declares what ought to be done, the will still re- 
taining its physical liberty. Here we are con- 
cerned, simply, with what is actually and con- 
stantly done by the free human will pursuing the 
tendency of the physical human nature. Now, 
what are some of the things that our own ex- 
perience teaches us regarding the uniform and 
constant methods that man pursues? 

We see that man naturally seeks his own good. 
We see also that man is constantly exercising a 
natural adaptation which he possesses for the ac- 
quisition of knowledge. WTien he sees that he can 
reap some positive advantage or escape some mis- 
fortune by giving to an event an attention that 
costs him no labor, he will bestow the slight atten- 
tion required — and this all the more readily if the 
event be of such a nature as to attract attention 
and to rouse the natural curiositv of the human 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 201 

mind. Even where there is nothing to be gained 
beyond the satisfaction of his innate thirst for 
knowledge, he will panse to look upon an nnnsnal 
deed or object. We see that this inborn love of 
man for the knowledge of the ^^facts" (the huge 
issues of the morning newspapers testify to this 
craving which calls them into existence) makes 
him little tolerant of a fellow-man who will belie 
the facts in a matter in which he takes ever so 
little interest. Hence, the lie is despised, even 
apart from its moral aspect. To be known as a 
liar is to be covered with reproach and oppro- 
brium: whereas, one of the first titles to esteem 
is to be of tried repute for truthfulness. Thus it 
comes to pass that men in their various relations 
with one another seek for the fair fame of the 
truth teller and shun the stigma that is put upon 
the liar. Whence it follows that men form a habit 
of truthfulness, which becomes a second nature. 
A lie is not told deliberately unless there be some 
personal satisfaction to be obtained by the lie to- 
gether with the strong probability that the lie 
will not be discovered, or, that, if it be discovered, 
the personal advantage hoped from it will — ac- 
cording to the depraved estimate — be considered 
sufficient compensation for the inconvenience of 
being branded as a liar. Hence the old saying 
that/no man is a liar gratis, but that when he does 
falsifv deliberately there is a strong motive be- 
hind the falsification: avarice, ambition, fear, re- 
venge or some such passion. 



202 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

Finally, whenever there arises a false rumor 
concerning a matter in which the public is in- 
terested, the rumor is always promptly contra- 
dicted ; and the contradiction comes all the sooner 
if there be persons to whom the rumor may prove 
inconvenient or hurtful. 

It will be noticed, as we have stated before, 
that we have not spoken of the deep moral mo-' 
tives underlying the conduct of men. We have 
been occupied in considering uniform results — so 
uniform, indeed, that they must be regarded as the 
outcome of native forces in humanity. It has not 
been our intention to specify all those forces. But, 
so far as the constancy and uniformity of results 
goes for the establishing of the conclusions which 
we have just called attention to, each one of us 
has, in his ovm personal experience with mankind, 
collected data more numerous and more exhaustive 
than the data that have ever been demanded for 
the formulation of any law in physical science. 

Such, then, shall be the human beings whom we 
shall suppose to be the witnesses testifying. 

100. The Argument in Brief. We can now 

briefly propose the argument for the possible- evi- 
dence of credibility in historical testimony: 

It will be possible for historical testimony to 
possess evidences of credibility, if it be possible 
for it to be accompanied by circumstances or con- 
ditions which evidence the knowledge and ver- 
acity of the witnesses. But it is possible for his- 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 203 

torical testimony to be accompanied by such cir- 
cumstances or conditions. Therefore it is pos- 
sible for historical testimony to possess evidence 
of credibility. 

The minor of this argument, namely, that it is 
possible for testimony to be accompanied by such 
circumstances, is made plain from a consideration 
of the conditions postulated above. We take a 
case in which testimony is rendered on a notable 
fact that is obvious to the senses ; we assume that 
there is a sufficient number of witnesses having the 
normal use of their senses ; and we choose an event 
of such a character as to preclude the possibility 
of collusion on the part of the witnesses. Now: 
each one of the conditions or circumstances is pos- 
sible in itself. No one of the conditions is incom- 
patible with the co-existence of any other one con- 
dition or with the co-existence of all the other 
conditions. There is nothing repugnant, there- 
fore, in their simultaneous existence as accom- 
panying testimony at the present time or at 
any other time. Therefore it is possible for testi- 
mony to be given under circumstances that will 
lend to it the unmistakable evidence of credibility, 
so that we may establish ourselves in certitude re- 
garding the event testified to. 

It may be useful for us to indicate the manner of 
applying these principles to the knowledge of 
events both contemporary and past. 



204 THE TKUTH OF THOUGHT. 

101. Contemporary Events. According to the 
general principle, certitude concerning contem- 
porary events can be based on testimony when we 
have evidence of the credibility of the testimony; 
and we have evidence of this credibility when we 
have evidence of the knowledge of the witnesses 
and evidence of their veracity. 

It is possible for ns to have evidence of their 
knowledge. We shall select a fact that is very 
obvious to their senses, even if their senses be a 
little obtuse. Let the fact be an earthquake, an 
eclipse, a holiday parade, or a great storm at sea. 
If the witnesses be many, and unanimous in their 
testimony, we cannot doubt of the fitness of their 
senses for the perception of the fact. A general 
and uniform illusion or hallucination in such a 
matter would be a physical impossibility, par- 
ticularly if, as w^e may suppose, the event should 
have been foretold by exact science, or should 
leave after it marks that lie open to the investiga- 
tion of the rest of men. We have chosen a sensible 
fact which forces itself into notice, which takes 
the attention captive, which is public and sim- 
ultaneous to all, and which demands no scientific 
knowledge for its observation. And, if necessary, 
we may presume that there are present in our 
great crowd of witnesses some who are capable of 
making a scientific note of the event, and whose 
testimony agrees. Hence it is possible to have 
a case in which we can have evidence of the knowl- 
edge of the witnesses. 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 205 

Now, for their veracity. We choose a possibil- 
ity : a public fact, declared by many who, — though 
differing in tastes, pursuits, years, religion, hab- 
its, nationality, education, prejudices,— agree, 
nevertheless, in their testimony. Considering the 
various interests here involved, a lie that could go 
undetected would be an utter impossibility. We 
are supposing men to be what we know them to 
be; and — to make our argument available for 
any time — we have no right to suppose men ever 
to have been anything else. The circumstances 
have been so selected that the same motive to de- 
ceive could not have alfected all the witnesses. 
The lie that would have brought momentary glory 
to one would have brought immediate and per- 
petual shame to another. Whilst it might have 
been to some a means to future enjoyment, it 
would have been to many only the price of suffer- 
ing which they could not be supposed thus to 
court, in conspiracy, for . pure love of the lie. 
And, in order to have evidence of their veracity 
it will not be necessary to introduce all the var- 
ieties of conditions mentioned above. It will be 
fully sufficient to have even but one condition 
which would so affect the witnesses as to render 
the lie an impossibility. 

Nor will it always be necessary to have a mul- 
titude of witnesses. A few persons testifying to 
a fact that can, when known, turn only to their 
own detriment, carry the evidence of their own 
veracity. Thus, if three men testify to a murder 



206 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

which they committed in cold blood, there is noth- 
ing in the nature of things which does not evidence 
the credibility of their testimony. Again, if a few 
witnesses give testimony to a fact in which others 
are deeply concerned and which these others have 
both a solemn interest in refuting and the ready 
means to refute, but which they accept and ac- 
laiowledge ; this very acceptance gives to the testi- 
mony of the few the element it requires for the 
evidence of its credibility. Kemember, that we 
are here speaking for the scientific, and not for 
the mob. There are many falsehoods, religious 
and political, which are thrown out to be sw^al- 
lowed by the mob, which does not examine. The 
refutation of these falsehoods has been given over 
and over again. But the mob always exists, and 
good men, who will not be heard by the mob, 
have to bear with the opprobrium that is ever 
cast upon them by envy and jealousy and the re- 
vengeful pride of humbled ambition. 

The force of testimony will be all the more 
readily recognized when those who give it have 
no earthly advantage to expect from the giving of 
it, but rather contempt, annoyance, persecution, 
torture, and even death. If we might refer to a 
case in point we would instance the testimony of 
the apostles. 

Recalling what we said (Nos. 51, 52) about ob- 
jective truths of the metaphysical, physical and 
moral order, we mis^ht ask. the question : to which 
order does the credibility-of-testimony, as an ob- 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 207 

jective truth, belong! When the testimony is evi- 
dently credible, do we hold the connection between 
the testimony and its credibility to be metaphys- 
ically, or only physically, or only morally nec- 
essary! AVe said (n. 51) that any individual fact 
of which we have immediate personal evidence, 
presents itself with evidence of its metaphysical 
necessity. For being so, it is absolutely impossible 
that it should simultaneously and under the same 
respect, not be so. But in the matter now under 
consideration we have not immediate evidence 
of the event. We know it no otherwise than 
through the credibility of witnesses. To what 
order of truth does this credibility belong! Does 
the credibility evidence itself objectively as a 
metaphysical, as a physical, or as a moral neces- 
sity! Testimony, in itself and merely as testi- 
mony, does not carry with itself any evidence of 
its credibility. It is only when it is allied with cer- 
tain conditions, as presented above, that there can 
be any evidence of its credibility. But when the 
testimony is fortified by these conditions, does it 
present itself as something with which credibility 
is evidently joined in metaphysical, physical or 
moral necessity! To this we reply that the neces- 
sity of connection between testimony and credibil- 
ity may be found to be sometimes of one order 
and sometimes of another. This will depend up- 
on the combination and the accumulation of the 
conditions. We may see that the testimony is 
credible and at the same time recognize that the 



208 : THE TRUTH . OF THOUGHT. . .; ; 

witnesses retain the physical power of giving 
false testimony : there will here be moral necessity, 
but not physical. Again the case may have been 
examined with such minuteness and the conse- 
quences of the testimony may be such, that there 
is absolutely no good to be derived from a false- 
hood. Now we know that the will never acts ex- 
cept in view of some good. Hence a falsehood 
under the circumstances would imply such move- 
ment of the wdll as is excluded by the physical 
nature of the will. It would be equivalent to non- 
gravitation on the part of matter. The necessity 
of connection between the testimony and cred- 
ibility would be a physical connection. It would 
have to be admitted as w^e admit any law in the 
physical universe. Finally if the fact is testified 
to as one that is public, patent, standing; if it is 
testified to by the whole human race, by individual 
travellers and by entire peoples in the affairs that 
concern their national life; if it be a fact, for 
instance, such as the existence of a place called 
France,— we come so close upon the border of a 
metaphysical necessity in the junction of credibil- 
ity with the testimony that there is no longer 
any distinguishing a difference, if difference there 
be. 

We suppose, of course, that you have never 
gone out to look for a place called France. But 
many of your friends tell you that they have been 
there; and they have brought you presents from, 
Paris. You have written letters to friends who, 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 209 

were said to be in France, and these letters reached 
tliem. You have seen great ships — each one of 
them worth a vast fortune — lying at the docks of 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and 
New Orleans; you have seen them come and go, 
disappear and reappear out upon the bosom of 
the ocean at the rim of the horizon, with the 
regularity of the departure and arrival of the sub- 
urban trains of your own city. You have seen 
your friends, w^ho professed to be going to France, 
take passage on these ships; and you have seen 
them return on the same. You have read of the 
French Empire and of the French Eepublic as 
institutions of your own time. You have read of 
the deeds of the French in the Crimean war, of the 
downfall of Napoleon the Third, of the death of 
I President Carnot. You have seen Ambassadors 
of France at Washington, and French Consuls in 
every large city that you have visited. I might con- 
tinue to accumulate testimonies until you should 
be forced either to admit that there was a place 
called France or to suspect that the whole human 
race had leagued in one grand conspiracy whose 
sole and ultimate end was to make you believe 
a falsehood; a falsehood, however, 'for the im- 
mediate correction of which by personal investiga- 
tion, every means was being put at your dis- 
posal by the entire membership of the vast con- 
spiracy. Is the conspiracy possible? Consider' 
liow few persons you know; and how few know 
you. In view of this, can you suppose that the 



210 THE TRUTH OK THOUGHT. 

human race should be devoting its time, energy 
and material resources to the work of making you 
believe a geographical mis-statement? The sup- 
position involves the most perfectly concealed col- 
lusion throughout the entire organization of hu- 
man society in all its departments, civil, social, 
military, industrial, commercial, international. 
The fortunes of the world are involved in the lie ; 
and millions of human beings are uncomplain- 
ingly wearing out their lives in abetting it. And 
all the conspirators know full well that you will 
need but a hundred dollars and two weeks of 
vacation to bring their enormous deceit to a very 
shameful end. Now, to come to the point, what is 
the necessity of connection, in this case, between 
the testimony and its credibility! Does there, 
in this case, remain any possibility whatever of 
the testimony not being credible? Does the ob- 
jective truth, this testimony is credible, present it- 
self to you as a metaphysical truth, that is, as 
evidencing, under the circumstances, absolute in- 
separability of the predicate from the subject? If 
you do not choose to call it metaphysical, you must 
at least allow the connection between subject and 
predicate to be so close and necessary that you 
would not feel justified in hesitating at the testi- 
mony unless you knew that the mental condition 
of all men, yourself alone excepted, was out of 
the normal. 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF'. 211 

102. Past Events. We have established the 
possibility of certitude regarding contemporane- 
ous events. Is it possible that we should be able to 
affirm with certitude the past reality of an event 
said to have taken place a thousand or two thou- 
sand years ago ? May we affirm with certitude the 
past existence of a Eoman Empire, and of a 
Eoman Emperor named Augustus! The case is 
the same as if we were to ask : Is such a combina- 
tion of circumstances possible that in the year 
3000 it might be affirmed with certitude that there 
existed a British Empire in the twentieth cen- 
tury? Could the present fact be so transmitted 
that there might be evidence of credibility in the 
testimony that related it? We are taking a fact 
of such a nature that there can be no doubt about 
the credibility of the contemporary testimony. But 
could this testimony go down from age to age 
accompanied by its credibility? Let us .suppose 
that the British Empire should cease to be this 
very day. Suppose that Great Britain and Ire- 
land should have sunk into the sea last night. 
There would still remain the English language; 
there would remain the histories of England, writ- 
ten in all the languages of the earth; and there 
would remain the official records of all the na- 
tions of the globe. But suppose that all these his- 
tories and all these documents should be burned 
this night and that the English-speaking peoples 
should wake up to-morrow morning speaking pn- 
other language, German, or French, or Spanish, 



212 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

and that the English language should in the slum- 
ber of a night become not only a dead language 
but forgotten. There would still be vast multi- 
tudes cf peoples who would have lived in or vis- 
ited England ; and their testimony would be cred- 
ible. Then we shall suppose that all those who 
had ever seen England shall die tonight. Now, 
what about tomorrow! There is not an eye-wit- 
ness left. You see, we are taking circumstances 
that involve far greater difficulty for the trans- 
mission of the event than is involved by the cir- 
cimistances of an event that transpired a thou- 
sand years ago, but in connection with which we 
still have the same people, the same language, the 
records of the time, the same unchanged face of 
nature, the hills and valleys and rivers that the 
records tells of, and even the towns or cities — if 
not in preservation, at least in ruin — whose 
streets and monuments have stood as silent wit- 
nesses and have been visited and written about by 
every generation from various climes through the 
lapse of a thousand years. But in the case we are 
taking, we are supposing that tomorrow morning 
there shall not be an eye-witness left, not a vestige 
of, nor a written word of reference to the past 
reality of Great Britain and Ireland. And just as 
you are convinced today of the existence of 
France, so would you be convinced tomorrow and 
next month of the past reality of Great Britain 
and Ireland. Your conviction would be the con- 
viction of the human race. The disappearance of 



HUMAK TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 213 

Great Britain would be immediately recorded in 
history. The learned men of the day and the of- 
ficers of the various governments of the earth 
would vie with one another in trying to commit 
to writing all that they could call to mind of the 
story of the lost island. Would the next genera- 
tion be able to form an undoubting judgment re- 
garding the past existence of the two islands? 
Would the credibility of the testimony of the men 
of today be evident! The next generation would 
admit the fact without a dissenting voice, as the 
men of today admit it without a dissenting voice, 
as the human race contemporary with the fact 
admitted it without a dissenting voice. If, then, 
the testimony of the present generation possesses 
evidence of credibility for the next generation, 
the testiiriony of the two generations will possess 
the evidence of credibility to force the assent of 
the third; and the testimony of three generations 
will possess the evidence of credibility to force the 
assent of the fourth generation. And so the evi- 
dence of credibility will perpetuate itself in such 
a way that it will force the assent of the men who 
shall live in the year 3000. And this can happen, 
too, even if the testimony be transmitted only by 
word of mouth, by oral tradition. This should 
suffice to show us the possibility of affirming a 
past fact with certitude. 

In conclusion we shall add, that when an event 
has been handed down through long ages, without 
any denial worthy of serious consideration, this 



214 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

single circumstance of the unbroken length of 
testimony is a plea for acceptance which may not 
be overlooked. 

The general question being thus determined, 
we shall, now, make a brief reference to the means 
by which the knowledge of past facts is handed 
down. These means we may classify as oral tra- 
dition, writing and monuments. 

103. Oral Tradition. Where a distant fact has 
been handed down by oral tradition, a condition 
of the reliability of the testimony will be, that 
the fact itself be one of a very notable and public 
character, one which would naturally attract the 
attention of a great many persons. It will be 
necessary, moreover, that there be no break in the 
chain of testimony reaching down from the fact 
to the present time. Besides, at each new stage in 
the progress of time, the body of mediate wit- 
nesses will have to be sufficiently large to warrant 
us in admitting that they had evidence of the 
credibility of the testimony of those who preceded 
them. And it must be remembered that in regard 
to the substance of a notable fact it is not easy for 
a general error to creep in, since there are three 
generations living at the same time ; and if it were 
possible for parents universally to give the same 
incorrect information to their children, the error 
would be corrected by the grandparents still liv- 
ing. Amongst rude tribes who have no written 
record, the credibility of a tradition is the more 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 215 

worthy to be considered, in proportion as it is 
fonnd to be the more generally cherished by the 
whole people, the wiser heads as well as the sim- 
ple ; and the credibility of a tradition will be still 
more deserving of notice if the substance of the 
fact be found to be preserved independently 
amongst different peoples. 

104. Writing. In order that documents, or 
writing, attesting a past fact, may possess for us 
the evidence of credibility, we must have evidence 
of their authenticity, of their substantial integ- 
rity and of their veracity. By authenticity we 
mean that the writing is the work of the author to 
whom it is ascribed; or, if the writer's name is not 
given, that it was written at the time at which it 
is said to have been written. 

The authenticity of a work is to be judged of 
upon both intrinsic and extrinsic evidence, that is, 
both from the internal characteristics of the work 
and from the traditional recognition that has been 
accorded to it. Some of the necessary internal 
marks are to be found in the language, the period 
written about, the personal character exhibited in 
the writing and the opinions set forth. The turns 
of speech must certainl^^ not be of later origin 
than the age to which the book is 'to be accredited; 
nor should they belong distinctively to a previous 
age, unless there is evidence that the style is an 
imitation of the style of that age. The persons, 
facts, customs, etc., must not be of a date later 



216 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

than that claimed for the execution of the writing. 
The tastes and character of the actual writer as 
shown forth in the book must not be in opposition 
to the well known tastes and character of the al- 
leged writer. We could hardly be asked now to 
admit in good faith that a low comic chronicle just 
discovered should be set down as the work of 
Cicero or of St. Augustine. So, too, if the book, 
in treating of grave matters, contains opinions 
that are clearly contradictory to the known 
opinions of the writer as expressed in authenti- 
cated writings, we cannot admit the contradictory 
work unless we have clear evidence that the writer 
changed his opinions. 

Amongst the exterior signs the most significant 
is an uninterrupted oral or written tradition re- 
garding the authenticity of the work. This mark 
will be all the more effective in evidencing the 
authenticity if we find the tradition holding firm 
under the futile attempts of hostile critics to dis^ 
credit the authenticity of the work. The only 
case which we have of such permanency under bit- 
ter, hostile attacks, is that which illumines the 
authenticity of the sacred writings of the Hebrews 
and the Christians. 

By integrity we mean completeness. Absolute 
integrity demands absolute completeness — ^no mu^ 
tilation and no interpolation. Substantial integ- 
rity in an historical composition implies merely 
that there be no substantial change from the 
primitive texts. Supposing the primitive texts to 



HUMAN TESTIMONY AND BELIEF. 217 

be authentic, a book written later upon the same 
subject without substantial change will be reliable 
as to the substance of the facts. 

But, with all this, it will still be necessary to 
pass sentence upon the veracity of the writing, 
upon the knowledge and truthfulness of the 
writer. To do this we must go back and judge 
the writer as we judged of those giving oral testi- 
mony. If the event be one of public importance 
and the writer be an eye-witness or an auricular 
witness amongst those the credibility of whose 
testimony we recognized above, or if his account 
be made up from authentic public documents and 
monuments, and if, moreover, no contradiction of 
his statement has existed in writing or in oral 
tradition, we cannot safely doubt his veracity. 
And thus it may come to pass that a single his- 
torian may supply us with plentiful motives of 
credibility. This will be the case if he be a public 
man of recognized good judgment and erudition in 
his day; if he wrote of his own times, and his 
writings were then accepted as correct; and par- 
ticularly if the substance of what he narrates has 
been carried down by oral tradition through two 
or three generations and his work has been kept 
and referred to as the true statement. 

105. Monuments. Monuments may be relied 
upon when they relate to a grave, public event 
and are known to have been fashioned at the time 
of the event to commemorate it — no one ventur- 



218 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

ing to contradict the event or the significance of 
the commemoration. Should such monuments be 
discovered to have been constructed long after the 
time of the fact they are intended to commemor- 
ate, they are to be held merely as the opinion of 
the time at which they were constructed ; and this 
opinion will have to be passed upon under the 
light of histor}^ and oral tradition. 

106. Note. In this chapter we have not pre- 
tended to discuss the canons of historical criti- 
cism. Such discussion would by itself fill a re- 
spectable volume. "We have wished solely to up- 
hold the possibility of arriving at true thought on 
the evidence of the credibility of testimony. Thus 
we have not felt it necessary to refer to certain 
principles which may serve for the rejection of a 
narrative, principles which may regard the nature 
of the events put down, or the capacity of the 
witnesses as compared with the nature of the 
events, or the literary methods of the writer. 
Neither, again, has it entered into our scope to 
expound the laws which must be applied in the 
balancing of probabilities or in the making of a 
choice when confronted by opposing testimonies. 



CHAPTER XV. CONCLUSION. 

Summary of Method — The two Extremes and the 
Middle — What is Evident? — A Quiet Process — Sen- 
sus Communis. 

107. Summary of Method. In the first and sec- 
ond chapters of this book we endeavored to state 
the problem that is involved in every act of judg- 
ment, in every mental conviction: Is the judg- 
ment true? Is there an object corresponding to 
the mental assertion? 

In the third chapter we emphasized the diffi- 
culty by presenting the conflicting replies volun- 
teered by a number of writers. The selection of 
writers was made with the view of exhibiting 
every shade of assertion and denial in opposition 
to the common-sense verdict of humanity. 

For the purpose of avoiding long refutations 
we tried to find something which all these writers 
necessarily admitted and upon which we ourselves 
were necessarily^ at harmony with all of them. 
We found our point of agreement in the affirma- 
tion of self. In this affirmation we had the recog- 
nition of the first fact, self ; the acceptance of the 
first condition necessary for the pursuit of knowl- 
edge, namely, the admission of the possibility of 
knowledge; the recognition of the first principle 

219 



220 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

without which not even the affirmation of self can 
be sustained, the principle of contradiction which 
saves us from den^dng simultaneously what we 
affirm. 

In seeking for the reason why self is affirmed 
with conviction we found the sole and universal 
reason to be, that self presents itself to be known, 
provided with an indubitable testimony to its 
existence, that is to say, provided with an evidence 
that-^cannot be gainsaid. Upon this evidence w^e 
affirm the existence of thought as our own; and 
of pleasure, pain, feelings and emotions as be- 
longing to self. 

Upon the very same grounds universally recog- 
nized as absolutely necessary and fully sufficient 
for the affirmation of the reality of self, we affirm 
the reality of the world of not-self, the reality of 
the object of each knowing-power. The life of 
cognition, then, is never a mere seeming to be. 
It is a veritable knowledge of truth which is ob- 
jective independently of the cognition. As we 
affirm self, so do w^e as inevitably affirm (1) the 
existence of bcdy-belonging-to-self ; (2) the exis- 
tence of matter or body which is not in any way 
identified with self; (3) the truth of certain prin- 
ciples or laws which govern the activity of self 
and of not-self. All these things come before us 
with an evidence as strong as that whereby we. 
are forced to recognize the existence of thought 
and of the self to which it belongs. Hence, if we 
admit the reality of our thought and of our self, 



CONCLUSION. 221 

we must admit the reality of all the rest upon an 
equally valid testimony, which is its own evidence. 
By sight and double contact we take in the evi- 
dence of the existence and conformation of our 
own bodies. By all the external senses we are 
put into communication with an external world 
and receive its evidence. We shall not come to 
know all about this external w^orld? But, what 
matter? Neither do we know all about our OAvn 
thought, nor about anything else that is identified 
with self. We have not a thoroughly comprehen- 
sive knowledge of any object that comes under our 
observation, be it intellect, thought, self, matter 
or the qualities of matter. But this is no reason 
why we should deny the existence of any one of 
them, or of so much of their nature as may be 
presented by evidence to even the untutored per- 
ception. And evidence unfolds itself and know^l- 
edge grows with observation, study, association 
and instruction. 

1C8. The Two Extremes and the Middle. The 

idealist, engrossed in the study of thought and of 
the intellectual ego, fails to give credit to the evi- 
dence brought to him through the external senses 
and treats the material world as though it were 
as immaterial as his idea of it. He denies, in 
fact, the certified reality of an outside world of 
matter, saying that he has no means of getting 
beyond the fact of his own impressions, that is, 
beyond the knowled2:e of the modifications of the 



222 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

conscious ego. Yet, he will admit your existence 
and mine. Indeed lie writes books for us. He ad- 
mits that each of us is a conscious ego. Now, he 
can know of the existence of conscious intellectual 
egos other than himself only after having be- 
come aware of the existence of bodies identified 
with these conscious egos; and he can know of 
the existence of such bodies in no other way than 
through the action of his external senses. But 
accepting the testimony of the senses for the 
existence of the bodies of other men, he must, if 
he will be consistent, accept the same testimony 
for the reality of the whole external world. 

The materialist, on the other hand, is engrossed 
in the study of matter, in the observation of the 
material phenomena that present their evidence 
through the senses. And so much account does 
he made of this evidence which the idealist denies, 
that he assumes sensible observation to be the 
sole test of reality. In other words, he assumes 
that matter alone exists. Of course he cannot 
ignore the fact of thought. Hence, to be true to 
his assumption that matter alone exists, he has 
next to assume that thought is but a movement of 
matter, perhaps a vibration of the brain. Thus, 
as the effort of the idealist is to explain his sen- 
sible perception on the basis of pure thought; so 
the effort of the materialist is to explain pure 
thought on the basis of sensible perception, or 
even to reduce all perception to mere vibratory 
movement of matter. 



CONCLUSION. 223 

We admit the evidence that both of them admit. 
But we avoid their ungrounded assumptions at 
the start; and we reject their false conclusions at 
the close. We follow the guidance of nature, 
which is always consistent. Materialist and ideal- 
ist, each, from his opposition standpoint, practi- 
cally repudiates one half of nature because it will 
not fit his theory. Each constructs a theory from 
his own opposite half -view of the case, and then 
fits the theory to the rest of the case. But howf 
By assuming the rest of the facts to be what they 
are not : by assuming them to be what they would 
have to be for the welfare of the preconceived 
theory. We are told that there is thus an advance 
towards scientific unity. But that is a very costly 
unity which is purchased at the price of ignoring 
the facts in the case. It is not scientific. It is 
not knowledge. It never rises above hypothesis: 
and even as hypothesis it is worthless, because it 
is based upon an unwarranted assumption. 

Unity is admirable: so is variety. But bare 
unity is monotony : bare variety is confusion. We 
do not neglect either one. We unify the varieties 
of intellect and sense, of thought and sense-per- 
ception, in the pervading identity of each conr 
scious, complex self. 

109. What is Evident? We have evidence then, 
Of self and its various modifications, thoughts, 
volitions, and of a body belonging to self; 



224 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

Of bodily organs that receive impressions from 
an external world ; 

Of that external world which contains other con- 
scious egos like unto ourselves; 

Of truths which, as general laws, pervade the 
working of nature. 

We have evidence, too, that this, our varied 
capacity for receiving evidence, works, if I may 
use the expression, automatically. Putting the 
evidence and its due presentation to the normal 
faculty, the result is inevitable and follows by a 
law as precise as the laws of movement and gravi- 
tation which regulate the changes and conserve 
the equilibrium of the solar system. We can no 
more fail to receive evidence of whatsoever kind, 
duly presented to the normal faculty, than the 
paper thrown into the fire can fail to burn or than 
the elastic ball striking against the hard surface 
can fail to rebound. The susceptibility of the con- 
scious ego to the action of evidence, and the con- 
scious recognition of evident truth, are as un- 
erring, according to the varying degree of condi- 
tions present, as is the execution of any law in 
the physical universe. In saying this I do not 
wish to exclude the influence of education and of 
personal liberty. For, these will condition both 
the general habitual readiness of receptivity and 
the momentary act of perception. Education de- 
velops the receptivity. By education (including 
all that it implies, observation, instruction, etc.) 
evidences are accumulated, combined, co-ordi- 



COl^CLUSION. 225 

nated, submitted to the processes of synthesis and 
analysis, of induction and deduction. Thus it will 
come to pass that truths which to the uneducated 
are utterly imperceptible, certain causes, effects, 
relations, similitudes, contrasts, may stand out in 
evidence before the educated mind whose recep- 
tivity has been developed by that which it has 
received. On the other hand — as we have seen in 
the chapter en error — passion, free will and pre- 
occupation can divert the attention and thus pre- 
vent an evidence from being, as it would otherwise 
be, fully and duly received. Moreover, the physi- 
cal condition of the sense-organ may be such that 
admission is denied to the entire evidence which 
is necessarily admitted by an organ in the normal 
state. One person may be color-blind; another 
may be deaf. Yet each one receives according to 
his receptive condition ; no more, no less. If either 
one errs, his error does not affect the physical 
law of receptivity. The sense responds with an 
exactness that is strictly proportioned to its ab- 
normal condition. 

I 

110. A Quiet Frccess. It is to be noted that in 

: the perceiving act the work gone through by the 
faculty or organism is not itself perceived. The 

! perception goes straight to the object known. No 
one can fail to see that, in the process of cognition, 

[ this is a wise ordination. The cognition goes on 
rapidly and undisturbed. In the same manner, 
when the will commands according to the cogni- 



226 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

tion, the powers are set moving in silent harmony 
— the intermediate processes between the pure 
volition and the final act wdlled following one an- 
other mysteriously towards the execution of the 
final objective purpose. 

You go about, day after day, thinking, acting. 
You form new concepts, ideas, notions, new judg- 
ments, new trains of reasoning. You resolve to 
act out the conclusions of your mental argument. 
Your attention is engrossed by the facts and prin- 
ciples which are the objects of your thought. The 
work done is exclusively subjective, and yet the 
direction of your attention is as exclusively ob- 
jective : so quiet and rapid is the pace of thought, 
and so silent and unperceived is the presentation 
to the will of knowledge that is to be acted upon. 
Long practice under the gentle tutorship of nature 
has taught us the swift and easy execution of 
many a mental feat whose processes will ever 
elude the labored, albeit keen, scrutiny of the clos- 
est student of psychology. The lessons of nature 
are learned without being adverted to: they are 
less tedious, more expeditious, more unerring than 
any we find in the schools. It is only when we 
hesitate at the value of a judgment formed re- 
garding objective truth, that we try to form ex^ 
pUcitly the other judgment, that ive knoiv that we 
know. And even then, this second judgment is not 
formed by a study of the first, but by a renewed 
studv of the object in whose evidence we expect 
to certify or discredit the prior mental act. 



CONCLUSION. 227 

111. Sensus Communis. We have insisted 
throughout upon the sensus Communis, the com- 
mon sense, the universal, uniform, constant con- 
sent of mankind upon the objective value of 
thought. Not that we make this common sense 
the criterion, the ultimate reason for any affirma- 
tion ; but we have to recognize in it the natural and 
necessary effect of the real criterion which is evi- 
dence. 

There exists and there has, beyond denial, ex- 
isted uniform and universal amongst men, an in- 
vincible conviction regarding the trustworthiness 
of the faculties and regarding the objective value 
of thought and sense-perception. If we should seek 
to apply to the conviction the test of experiment 
we should find that in each individual the convic- 
tion would be supported by a series of experi- 
ments more extensive in range, more varied, more 
exact, more numerous, than those that have served 
for the formulation of any law — of any thousand 
laws — ^in physical science. And we should find 
that in the case of each individual these experi- 
ments began so early and were so unremittingly 
carried on by the force of the conditions of human 
existence, that the conclusion made itself felt as 
an essential condition of life even before the 
young mind was capable of the act of reflection or 
of explicitly making a scientific induction out of 
its untold experiences. Any theory, then, of 
human thought and existence which will not st^nd 
the test of the inevitable conditions of humanity 



228 THE TRUTH OF THOUGHT. 

must be rejected by one who would be recognized 
as being in the normal state. Every philosophy 
that breaks away from the fundamental laws of 
human existence becomes upon the instant only 
the hypothetical fiction of an individual mind 
fancying to itself what would be if things were 
not as they are. 

The recognition of the objective value of 
thought is the basis upon which the practical life 
of the human race has been founded from the 
beginning. The failure to recognize it must neces- 
sarily make life a practical impossibility. 

We know that what we have said throughout 
this work is an unreserved condemnation of that 
mixture of doubts, denials, inconsistencies and 
contradictories, which, has been labeled ** modern 
philosophy." A philosophy that antagonizes the 
universal, elementary convictions of the human 
race which are primarily essential to the existence 
of the race, is not the philosophy for man. And 
thus primarily essential is the universal convic- 
tion regarding the truth cf thought. Dispense 
with it, and there is an end to the thought itself. 
It is necessary everywhere, in private and in pub- 
lic life. It is as necessary to the continuance of 
the human family as primary movement is to the 
conservation of the solar and sidereal universe. 
T^ke away this primary movement, and you will 
have a crash of worlds that will fill space once 
more with vapor and atomic dust. So take away 
man's necessary conviction as to the truth of 



CONCLUSION. 229 

thought, and in sixty days earth will become a 
great cemetery covered with the remains of the 
entire human family, left there a prey to the 
beasts of the forest which will soon have made 
their lairs where kings just sat on thrones. 

So the final philosophy of the truth of thought 
is, that it is the law of man's nature and that he 
must abide by it. 



Alphabetical Index 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



Numbers refer to pages. 



Abstraction, 131. 

Apprehension, 79 ; an element of 
logical truth, 82, 130. 
^. Aristotle, 117. 
Attention, 130. 
Authority, 185. 

Bacon, Francis, 25 ; effect of his 
writings, 26. 

iBelief, 185; divine and human, 185; 
necessary for life, 189-91. 

Berkeley, George, 29 ; interpretation 
of Locke, 29 ; endeavor to com- 
bat Locke, 29 ; whither it led 
him, 30; scepticism, 71; nomi- 
nalism, 136. 

Certainty, 93. 

Certitude, 17, 85; natural object of, 

, 86; metaphysical, physical, moral, 
92 ; objective, 92 ; immediate, me- 
diate, direct, reffex, philosophical, 

■: 93; purely subjective, 172. 

Ghampeaux de, William, 137. 

Comte, Auguste, 41 ; three stages of 
the mind, 41 ; idea of science, 
positivism, 42. 

Concept, 119. 

Conreptualism, 135, 141. 

Condition, first, 182. 

Consciousness, 50 ; agreement re- 
garding its testimony, 51 ; power, 
act, state, 52 ; simultaneous, di- 
rect, concomitant, reflex, after- 
53 ; continuous, 54 ; object of, 56 ; 
leading facts reached, 56; motive 
for declarations, 57 ; and evi- 

233 



dence, 58 ; and not-self, 60 ; is 
knowledge, 61 ; a common ground, 
IZ. 

Consent, common, 46 ; truths recog- 
nized by it, 47-9 ; tendency to 
rely on it, how far a motive for 
certitude, value as a guide, 195- 
97 ; and objective value of 
thought, 227. 

Criterion, 13, 18, 164; final, univer- 
sal, 164-65 ; difficulty concerning, 
165; of idealist and traditional- 
ist, 165; not blind instinct, 166; 
of Reid, 167; not sentiment, 167; 
is objective, 167; subtle question, 
168; analytic search for, 168-70; 
tests of, 169-71; what subjective 
C. means, 173. 

Descartes, Rene, 32 ; universal 

doubt, clear idea, inconsistency, 
iZ; disastrous assumption, 34; D. 
and scepticism, 66 ; his criterion, 
172; key to his difficulty, 173. 

Documents, 188; authenticity, 215; 
integrity, veracity, 215-17. 

Doubt, 85. 

Ego, subject of all predications of 
consciousness, 98. 

Error., 78 ; in the judgment, 122, 
147; cannot be in perception, 
147-8, 225; not physically neces- 
sary, 147; source in will, 148-153; 
how termed inevitable, 153 ; and 
opinion, 153; and normal state, 
154; special difficulties, 156. 



234 



AI.PHABETICAL INDEX. 



Evidence, importance, 58 ; partial 
E. not enough, 72 ; and idealist, 
72; is the criterion, 167; per- 
ceived as objective, 171; purely 
objective, 172; the word E., 177; 
inimediate, mediate, intrinsic, ex- 
trinsic. 178-81; E. of credibility, 
181, 185; summary of evidences, 
223-25. 

Evolution, 22. 

Fact, first, 182. 

Facts, classification of, 186. 

Falsity, logical, 78, 146. 

Fichte, J. G., his universal contra- 
dictories and the limitation of the 
Ego, Zl. 

Hallucinations, 120, 155. 

Hearing, 105; formal object, per- 
ception of variations, 105-6; rapid 
action, value in life, perception 
of distance and direction, 107. 

Hegel, G. W. F., 39. 

His'ory, philo<^ophy of, 21 ; H. of 
Philosophy, 22. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 26; his perver- 
sion of Bacon's advice, 27; nomi- 
nalism, 136. 

HuTie. David, 31; advances from 
Berkeley's position to scepticism, 
31-2; scepticism, 66-71; nominal^ 
ism, 136. 

Idea, not image, 117; belongs to 
intellect, 117; may be universal, 
118; never innate, 127; as a sign, 
132; an act and representative. 
133; a signum in quo, 133-4; the 
universal, 134; is universal by 
identity and not by similitude, 
and the u. is necessary for con- 
tinuous thought, 141-42 ; and for 
science, 143; and is the stepping 
stone of argument, 144 ; no false 
ideas, 146. 

Idealism, and positivism, 42, 67 ; 
and scepticism, 66 ; fundamental 
error, 159. 221-22. 

Ignorance, 84. 

Illusions, 120. 



Image, 116; is not idea, 177; be 
longs to imagination, 117; always ' 
individual, 118. 

Imagination, 116; supplements ex- 
ternal senses, 116-19; I. and in- 
tellect, 117; uses of, 123; accom- 
panies thought, 127. 

Initial Philosophy, 14. 

Initium Philosophandi, 14. 

Intellect, 117; works without an or- 
gan, 125-6; no intrinsic concur- 
rence of matter, 126; same as 
mind, 128; acts of, 130. 

Intuition, 131. 

Judgment, 79, 130; is it something 
more than perception? 82-3; error 
in J., 122; (see error). 

Kant, Immanuel, 34 ; his a priori 
forms, 35; synthetic a priori judg- 
ments, 35-37; scepticism, 67, 71; 
conceptualism, 136. . 

Knowledge, 13, 14-20; begins in 
sense-perception, 127; immediate 
and mediate, 131 ; beginnings of, 
181 ; process of, 225. 

Lamennais, de, 165. 

Locke, John, 27 ; his ambiguous ter- 
minology and its consequences, 
28; L. and the idea, 117. 

Logic, applied, material, critical, 
formal, 12, 13. 

Materialism, 67; and positivism, 42; 
and scepticism, 66, 67 ; funda- 
mental error of, 202. 

McCosh, James, 175. 

Memory, 54. 

Middle course, 46, 72. 

Mill, J. S., 43, 71, 136. 

Mind, states of, in regard to truth, 
84 ; not synonymous with soul, 
128; same as intellect, 129. 

Monuments, 188, 217. 

Nature, primary lessons of, 14 ; an- 
swer to our present inquiry, 15; 
practical decision of,. 18. 

Nominalism, 134, 141. 

Notion, 119; no false notions, 146. 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



235 



Not-self, transit to, 61-2; affirma- 
tion of, 63. 
Novelties, speculative, 23, 45-6. 

Obscurity, 23, 46. 
Opinion, 85. 

Perception, direct and reflex, 53 ; i. 

necessary act, 224. 
Person, human person a unit, 54 ; 

subject of all the predications of 

consciousness, 98; principle of 

unity in, 127. 
Perspective, idea of, how formed 

originally, 109-111. 
Phantasm, 116. 
Philosophy, rational, distinguished 

from experimental science, 11 :. 

history of, 22 ; initial, 14 ; the 

positive in Ph., 65; modern, 228 
Physical Science, 22. ' 
Physiology, 11, 98. 
Positivism, 41 ; and a priori truths, 

43; makes science impossible, 44; 

and scepticism, 66-7. 
Principle, first, 182. 
I Probability, 94 ; transfer of terms, 

95. 
Proof, immediate and mediate, 179. 
Psychology, 11, 12, 120, 127, 129. 

Realism, 134; ultra-, 137; moderate, 

138-40. 
Reasoning, 79, 130. 
Reid, Thomas, 167, 175. 
Revelation, 185. 
Rousseau, J. J., 167. 

Schelling, F. W. von, 39. 

Scepticism, tendency to, sources of 
tendency, 20-21; dogmatic and 
non-dogmatic, 65; partial, 66; its 
inconsistency, 67 ; how to meet 
it, 68 ; its assumption, 68 9; a 
false philosophy, 70 ; unreason- 
able, 70-1. 

icience, physical, 22 ; need of the 

universal idea, 143. 
»elf, memory and continuous iden- 
tity of self, 54-5 ; object of con- 



scipusness, 56; self and not-self, 
60; afifi-mation of, 63. 
Senses, 99; cannot deceive, 122; 
work with organ and perceive 
only individual, 125; do not reach 
the abstract, 126. 
Senses, external, number of, 99, 162; 
organs of, 99 ; formal object of, 
100; material object, 100; provide 
material for thought, 100 ; ba is 
for distinction kjl. 111; and imagi- 
nation, 119. 
Sensibility, 100. 
Sensus communis (See Common 

consent). 
Sentimen.alists, 167. 
Sight, formal object of, 108; per- 
ception of color, 108; no di/ect 
perception of perspective, 109 ; 
education of S., 110. 
Sign, by which, in which, natural, 

arbitrary, 132-34. 
Signum, quo, in quo, ex quo, 132- 

34. 
Smell, formal object, delicacy, direc- 
tive role, 103-4 ; does it reach not- 
self? 104-5. 
Soul, is the principle of unity in 
man, 127; cannot be matter, can 
act through matter, 128 ; vivifies 
body, is permanent, not synony- 
mous wi.h mind, possesses mind, 
128-29. 
Speech, universal usage to be con- 
sulted, 75, 80. 
Spencer, H., 43, 66, 71. 
Stewart, Dugald, 175. 
Systems, 45. 

Taste, formal object of, 101 ; is al- 
lied to fmell, limited scope of, 
101-2; does it reach not-self? 102; 
enriches our vocabulary, 103. 

Temperature, perception of, 13. 

Tes'imony, as a criterion, 184; di- 
vine, human, 185; object of, 
doctrinal, historical, 185-6 ; dog- 
matic, its value, how to judge of 
its credibility, in direct and re- 
flex sciences, when it aflfords cer- 



236 



ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 



titude, prudential rules for aacept- 
ance, 191-95; historical, evidence 
of its credibility, conditions re- 
quired in facts and persons, 197- 
202 ; argument, 202 ; contempo- 
raneous events, 204 ; knowledge 
and veracity of witnesses, 202-10; 
credibility of testimony, whether 
a metaphysical, physical or moral 
truth taken objectively, 207-8; 
past events, 211-14. 

Theories, 15; summary of, 40; er- 
roneous, 51. 

Thing, 76. 

Thought, thought-contents and 
knowledge, 12, 13; tru.h of, 13; 
as knowledge and as representa- 
tive, 17, 18, 76-8; conformity 
with word and thing, 76-8; ma- 
terial for provided through 
senses, 100; thought commonly 
taken to mean predication, the 
universal idea is essential in con- 
tinuous thought, 142; object of 
thought, 143-44. 

Touch, how considered, organ of, 
111-12; localization by experience, 
112-13; perception of tempera- 
ture, 113; muscular sense, 114; 
education by touch, 114. 

Tradition, oral, 188 ; conditions for 
reliability, 214. 

Traditionalists, 165. 

Treatise on the truth of thought, 



data for, name of, 12; what de- 
pends on it, easy to master, 14; 
necessity of its conclusions, in 
what spirit to be studied, 14; 
difficulties, 17; new, 20; matter, 
manner of treatment, refutations, 
23; method, 50; advantages of 
method, 51, 71; a difficulty, 97; 
considers the normal state, 123 ; 
summary of method, 219. 
Truth, affirmation of objective truth, 
63; ontological, logical, moral, 73; 
truth is a conformity, 75 ; logical 
truth, 76 ; logical truth in appre- 
hension, judgment, reasoning, 79, 
80-3 ; states of mind in regard to 
truth, 84 ; ontological truth, ab- 
solute, hypothetical, metaphys- 
ical, physical, moral, 86-92; ob- 
jective truth, 175. 

Unity in science, 223. 

Universal (see idea and thought). 

Views, 15. 

Vision, illustration of, 160; exten- 
sion of its terminology, 177. 

Will, and error, 148-53. 

Witness, 184; divine, human, 185; 
immediate, mediate, 187; contem- 
porary, quasi-contemporary, eye- 
witness, auricular, 187-88. 

Writing, authenticity of, 215. 







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